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The Committee on Publications of The 
Grolier Club certifies that this copy of 4 
Descriptive Catalogue of an Exhibition of 
Japanese Landscape Prints from Hokusai 
to KyOsai is one of an edition of three ~ 
hundred copies, printed on Van Gelden 
Zonen paper, at The Gilliss Press. The 
presswork was completed in the month of 
April, 1924. 





JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 
FROM 
HOKUSAI TO KYOSAI 











DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE 


OF AN EXHIBITION OF 


JAPAN EOE 
Pam DoCAPE, BIRD, AND 


BLOWER PRINES, 
AND SURIMONO 


FROM 
HOKUSAI TO KYOSAI 


BY 


PA) Mente SLO UX 





| NEW YORK 
THE GROLIER CLUB 
1924 





— 


aS . Copyright, 1924, by eee 
. } The Grolier Club of the Bee a 
nt City of New York ea: 





BISTiOrrLATES 
PREFACE 


CATALOGUE 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 





Pie Be ACCES 


PLATE “NUMBER PAGE 
FRONTISPIECE HriROSHIGE No. 52. . . Title 
PLATE I Y EISHI NO 6 
PLATE II HOKUSAI NOr [5 aipuk jpe 8 
PLATE III Hokusal Peo ee tO 
PLATE IV HOKUuSAI Noob iO? aekede *heal 2 
PLATE V HOKUSAI NOmeTOr 2 ta A 
PLATE VI HirosHiGE No. 71. . . 58 
PLATE VII HirosHice No. iia eee aye 
PLATE VIII HirosHIiGE No. 79. . . 64 
PLATE IX HirosHIGE No. 80. . . 66 
PLATE X HIROSHIGE «NO. 94.) 45 4e. 72 
PLATE XI HirosHIGE No.100. . . 76 
PLATE XII KunitvosH1 No. 124... . 92 


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PREFACE 


The exhibition of Japanese Figure Prints held 
by the Grolier Club in 1923 followed the develop- 
- ment of the art of color-printing in Japan, from 
its origin in the outline work of Moronobu, to the 
brink of that precipice from which it fell before 
the death of Toyokuni, the last Master of the 
Japanese print who chose to depict those fleet- 
ing aspects of this delightful world that are pri- 
marily of the Town—the success of actors, the 
splendor of courtesans, the gay life of a newly 
emancipated bourgeoisie. 

By 1800, Yedo, the new capital of the Shoguns, 
was not as buoyantly gay as it had been a hun- 
dred years before; the middle classes had grown 
accustomed to affluence; they did not feel pros- 
perity with quite the exhilaration of their ances- 
tors,—the novelty was wearing off; and, as M. 
Louis Aubert, that most discriminating of critics, 
has pointed out with his usual French clarity, it 
is quite natural for people who have been ex- 
periencing the pleasures of the town to try the 
pleasures of the country. There was romance 
about the old capital, Kyoto, where the great 
Japanese traditions of zsthetic eclecticism had 
been maintained at the quiet Imperial Court; 


Xl 


PREFACE 


there was the romantic beauty of pine-hung 
shores at dawn or sunset, of mist and mountain 
tops, of birds in flight or poised among delicate 
blossoms; all along the roads which led out from 
the bustling gayety of Yedo to the old-world 
gardens of Kyoto, the cryptomerias of Nara, the 
wilder Northern coasts. The bourgeoisie became 
tourists with an eye to the picturesque; and the 
Japanese print was reborn with Hokusai to de- 
pict once more the beauty and interest of the 
fleeting world we know; but in this second flower- 
ing of the art the artists, who, it must be em- 
phasized again, were of the people and working 
for the people, became intent on the ephemeral 
beauties of Nature rather than the ephemeral 
joys and splendor of Life. 

The reader is referred to the Catalogue of 
Figure Prints for historical information, technical 
details of processes, etc.; and it need only be 
added that the system of measurements and 
references is the same, except that for Hiroshige 
the Hiroshige Memorial Catalogue, published in 
Tokyo, is taken as the standard rather than the 
final volume of the Vignier-Inada Catalogue of 
Paris, in which too many unsubstantiated theories 
are developed. 

Loe: Viiody 


Xil 


for iy Lee 


' 








CATALOGUE 


THE ANTECEDENTS 


For centuries before the birth of Hokusai or 
of Moronobu the art of landscape painting had 
flourished in Japan. The temples and palaces 
of Kyoto, the storehouses of the nobles, were 
filled with landscapes or bird-and-flower paintings 
by the great Masters of old, priceless possessions 
that were jealously guarded by their owners and 
handed down from generation to generation of 
keenly appreciative critics. The old painters, 
however, had seen the moods and aspects of 
Nature merely as transitory manifestations of 
something that was not transitory but perma- 
nent, eternal. Their minds had been intent on the 
spiritual significance of a scene; they had striven 
to look through Nature and depict that which 
it implied, as a portrait painter might see, in 
his sitter, beyond all else the manifestation of a 
soul. Art was the apostle of Zen Buddhism; and 
in all the amazing variety and beauty of dif- 
ferent schools and masters there were certain fun- 
damental laws regarding the way of seeing— 
Platonism we might call it—and of expressing, 
from which there could be little deviation. Ho- 


3 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


kusai was not, by a thousand years and more, 
the discoverer of the art of landscape; he was 
an adapter, a discarder, in one sense a debaser. 
Comparatively uninfluenced by tradition, Hoku- 
sai looked at things with clear, fresh vision, 
seeing Nature as a realist sees it from the point 
of view of empiricism, and caring little or no- 
thing for the shadowy world behind that play 
of life and light and opalescent color which was 
apparent to his senses and which kept him in- 
tensely interested, life-long. 

Artists of the popular school had experimented 
with prints of bird-and-flower or landscape sub- 
jects before Hokusai, but in almost every in- 
stance these prints were done in the manner, if 
not in the spirit, of painting; they were like a 
line from Milton in a popular comedy—an echo 
of a different world. M. Aubert has pointed out 
the fact that the eagles and falcons of Masanobu 
and the other primitive Masters of the print school 
suggest the Samurai; have in them the knightly 
spirit of mediaeval Japan. He might have gone 
further and shown how like they were in feeling 
to the keen and knightly eagles painted by 
Sesshu, by Sotan or by Motonobu. 

Two prints of lesser birds and one landscape 
by artists earlier than Hokusai are exhibited, 
partly as an indication of what the late, plebeian 
school of print designers had done in this special 
line before Hokusai, but chiefly, it must be con- 
fessed, to show the sources of what is to follow 


4 


ctl 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


by leading the mind back over the way it must 
go always in Japan, back from the sunlit luxu- 
riance of Yedo, through quiet gardens designed 
by Soami, to the twilight cryptomerias of Nara, 
whose roots hide deep in the ancient earth, as 
the roots of all ““new”’ phases of art in the East 
are hidden deep in the shadows of immemorial 
antiquity. 


KORIUSAI (worked Ca. 1768-1786) 


Two white herons at sunset. One stands on the 
snow-covered bank of a river, the other is flying 
above the stream. 

One of the few facts known about Koriusai is 
that, like Yeishi, he was somewhat better born 
than most of the other designers of prints; and it 
is worthy of notice that the bird subjects selected 
for this preliminary part of the exhibition hap- 
pen to be by the only two artists of the school 
who were connected, even remotely, by birth 
with those circles in which the traditions of the 
older painting were carefully maintained and 
prints were despised. 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. II, No. 
432. 

Signed Koriusai. 

Size 92 X 7. 


UTAMARO (1753-1806) 


“The Silver World.” A snow-scene along the 
Sumida River with men in straw storm-coats 


y 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


towing a boat. The snow-covered, half-sub- 
merged willow is done much in the manner of 
Kano painting. The gradation of the grays in 
the printing is notable. 

Utamaro, whose career was fully discussed in 
the catalogue of the preceding exhibition, did not 
design many landscapes; it would be difficult, 
however, to find any print by the avowed mas- 
ters of that art more satisfactory in its rendering 
of Nature or more pleasing than this snow-scene 
by Utamaro. 

The print is a double-page sheet from Yebon 
Ginsekai, published in 1790 by Koshodd and 
signed Kitagawa Utamaro. 

Subject reproduced, Kurth’s Utamaro, Plate 
14a. 

Size 10 X 15. 


YEISHI (1756-1829) 


A white heron perched on a plum tree in pale 
moonlight. 

This print again suggests the painting of one of 
the older schools, and it may be noted that Yeishi, 
a samural, gave up designing prints to devote 
the last thirty years of his life to the more aristo- 
cratic art. No impression of this print appears 
to have been reproduced and no other is known 
to the writer. 

Signed Yeishi. 

Size 93 x 74. (Plate 1). 





PLATE I > YTEISht NO. 4 





JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


HOKUSAI (1760-1849) 


When Hokusai was born the period of the prim- 
itives had not yet ended and Harunobu still 
was unknown to fame. When Hokusai died 
Hiroshige, the last great Master of the color 
print, had only a few years in which to finish his 
work before Japanese art was to be submerged, 
at least for a time, under the flood of Western 
influences. During nearly ninety years Hokusai 
studied everything that came before his eyes and 
drew it; he was the keenest and most insatiable 
of observers, an artist of enormous productivity. 
Nothing was too trivial for his attention, nothing 
so sublime as to make him hesitate. He was a 
person of overflowing vitality; an eccentric who 
changed his name a score of times and had ninety- 
three known addresses. He was modest but with 
a fine sense of the dignity of art; he was very poor. 
And what a figure he must have been, mingling 
with mountebanks in street crowds, or, solitary, 
watching the dawn over Fuji, always with brush 
in hand, watching and learning! 

In his youth Hokusai studied for a time under 
Shunsho, and his earliest prints, signed Shunro, 
are actor portraits of considerable originality but 
somewhat in the manner of his master. No 
studio, however, could hold him long; the prints of 
his maturity show little or no trace of having 
been influenced by Shunshé, Kiyonaga, Sharaku 
or Utamaro, for he was intent on working out 


7 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


his own destiny, sketching everything that ani- 
mate or inanimate Nature offered, until he made 
of himself the landscape artist, a small selection 
from whose work is shown here. 

Hokusai, the first Japanese painter to be appre- 
ciated by the Occident, was promptly proclaimed, 
to the amusement of the Japanese, their greatest, 
lately it has become the fashion in Europe and 
in America to look upon Hokusai more as he is 
looked upon in Japan, as a consummate crafts- 
man, an illustrator of amazing cleverness and 
versatility, who yet lacked that spiritual in- 
sight which alone can make from the qualities 
he undoubtedly possessed, great art. Truth 
may be somewhere between the two views; but 
it is better to turn to the pictures than to con- 
tinue the discussion. His book illustrations and 
superb large panels are not represented here, 
but from the prints that are exhibited it can be 
said without fear of contradiction, that with 
Hiroshige as perhaps his peer in landscape, Ho- 
kusai certainly takes rank among the very fore- 
most five or six of those distinguished artists who 
gave their lives to making the Japanese print 
the thing of beauty and of power that it is. 


HOKUSAI 


Surimono. Three men under a maple tree in 
autumn. One is about to pour saké for another 
who seems to be distinctly unhappy; the third 
looks on and laughs. The text that went with 


8 


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JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


this surimono 1s lost, but the picture, in all proba- 
bility, alludes to the story of the three drinkers, 
Gautama, Confucius and Lao-tsze, who illustrated 
the different attitudes toward life of the relig- 
ions they founded by varying reactions toward 
draughts of the same wine. One found it sweet, 
one sour and the third very bitter. There is one 
truth, said the sage, but there are a number of 
different ways of seeing it. 

A surimono is a particular kind of print, the 
characteristics and uses of which will be discussed 
under Number 39. 

The print is not signed, but is attributed to Hoku- 
sai, and probably was issued about the year 1800, 
perhaps as part of an invitation to some autumnal 
party where there was to be drinking. 

Size 7% X 10. 


HOKUSAI 
Surimono. A scene of spring in the rice fields. 
Women are setting out the young plants while 
a farmer pauses on the iris-bordered dyke that 
bounds their field to gaze at the far-off silver 
cone of Fuji. 
As surimono were privately printed and not for 
sale, the editions could seldom have been large, 
and it is unusual to find duplicates, or repro- 
ductions from other copies of the same print. 
Unsigned, but in Hokusai’s style of about 1800 
or a little later. 
Size 10% x 15%. (Plate II). 

9 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


6 HOKUSAI 


Surimono. A village on the shore. In the distance 
Fuji rises through mist into the delicately tinted 
sky of some quiet dawn or sunset. 

The signature on this print, which means “Ho- 
kusai mad-about-painting,” is shown by Number 
350 in the Rouart Catalogue to have been a form 
used, at least occasionally, as earlyas1796. It con- 
tinues to appear, sometimes on work that almost 
certainly is as late as 1805, and Hokusai may 
have continued to sign in that way when he hap- 
pened to feel like it, until 1815. No one knows; 
and a wise cataloguer refrains from committing 
himself whenever definiteness can be avoided. 
Signed Gwakyo Jin Hokusai. 

Size 6;x18. (Plate III). 


7 HOKUSAI 


Surimono. A wooded hill beside the shore with 
distant boats and mountains beyond. The sky 
is streaked with pale yellow bars. 

Such prints are called surimono because of their 
delicacy though they have not the metallic touches 
characteristic of surimono printing. This one ap- 
pears to be a companion piece to the last, but is 
signed merely “Hokusai.” 

Size 6} x 18. 


8 HOKUSAI 


Surimono, A woman of the upper classes riding 
an ox and playing on her flute as she rides. The 
10 


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JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


beast is led by a peasant girl and followed by a 
child. ‘The figures, the tree under which they are 
passing, and the landscape background form an 
exquisite composition; and the silver printing of 
the lady’s robe is characteristic of the surimono 
at its best. 

There may be an allusion in this print to Michi- 
zane (see Grolier Club: Catalogue of Figure 
Prints, Numbers 21 and 117,—as well as number 
99 of the present Catalogue), who is generally 
depicted in his exile riding an ox. The silver 
blossoms of the plum tree seem also to allude to 
him, for when he was banished and came to say 
farewell to his garden, he composed a poem which 
ever after was associated with his name and story, 
and which may be translated in the metrical form 
of the original somewhat as follows: 


Freight with your fragrance 
Winds of Spring in their passing, 
Plum-trees, my plum-trees! 
Yea, though the Master be far, 
Forget not Spring’s returning. 


Unfortunately, this print brings up another of 
the difficult questions regarding Hokusai’s signa- 
tures, for although the impression exhibited is not 
signed, one reproduced in the Hayashi Cata- 
logue, p. 190, Number 1223, bears, just above 
the collectors’ seals, an almost effaced signature 
which was read from the original “Shinsai,’”’ but 


Il 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


cannot be read in the reproduction. Most books 
on the subject follow one another in stating, 
without reference to any authority, that Hokusai 
used this signature until about 1800 when he 
gave it to a pupil. The personal name of the 
pupil is known, and many surimono by him 
closely resemble the less important work of his 
Master; but in the absence of absolute proof that 
Hokusai ever used a signature which his pupil 
is known to have used, it has been necessary 
either to continue to attribute by internal evi- 
dence or to work out some theory. ‘The present 
writer ventures a suggestion, founded on the 
index in Japanese and English to the translated 
edition of the Kawaura Catalogue, that when 
Hokusai wrote this signature he used characters 
the second syllable of which should be trans- 
literated SEI, whereas the pupil signed SAI. If 
the signature in the Hayashi reproduction could 
be read it might prove the theory, but if it were 
not for that reproduction the unsigned print ex- 
hibited would be attributed confidently to Ho- 
kusai, the drawing of the peasant girl being seem- 
ingly too characteristic to have been done by 
any one else. 

The surimono was issued for New Year of the Ox 
Year—probably 1793—and the text that was 
printed with it contains, besides the date, a num- 
ber of unimportant short poems. 

Size 8 x 213. 


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JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


HOKUSAI 


Surimono. Three women on a balcony over- 
looking the Sumida River, The farther shore 
at Mimeguri beyond. 

This is the type of Hokusai print that most 
strongly influenced Whistler; in fact, there is a 
water-color by Whistler in the Freer Museum 
that seems almost like a translation of this very 
surimono. 

Signed Hokusai Sori. Date 1797-1800. 

Size 8 x 22. (Plate IV). | 


HOKUSAI 


Snowy landscape with mist. At the right pines 
and a thatched cottage; at the left a curved 
bridge with travelers; beyond, a hill and a flock 
of birds flying. 

With this print of delicate color and poetic charm 
we leave the youth of Hokusat; most of his later 
work is in a different mood and printed in stronger 
color. Between the two come the years when he 
was almost entirely absorbed in book illustra- 
tion, but published occasionally separate prints 
and surimono. 

Signed Sori Aratame Hokusai, or Sori changed to 
Hokusai. Seal Tatsumasa. Date about 1799. 
Size 8 x 13%. (Plate V). 


HOKUSAI 


A fisherman in a boat raising his net. From 
the set entitled Chi-ye no ume: ‘‘The Sea of a 


13 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


Thousand Pictures’; or, “‘A Thousand Pictures 
of the Sea’, 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 
338. 

There are several ways of transliterating the 
signature used here, but in any reading it means 
I-itsu (or Tamekazu) formerly Hokusai. 

Size 73% X 10. 


HOKUSAI 


Autumn Evening Light at Choko. A long stone 
causeway stretching over the water; there are 
strange junks of a Chinese type in the fore- 
ground, hills beyond. 

From a set of eight views of the semi-tropical 
Ryikyai or Lucha Islands which lie between 
Japan and Formosa, In the time of Hokusai 
these islands had been for some centuries under 
the double influence of Japan and China, to both 
of which empires the native sovereigns paid trib- 
ute. They are difficult of access to-day, but a 
hundred years ago the trip there must have been 
something of an adventure, and one is inclined 
to question why a painter of advanced age who 
was notably short of money took such a trip. 
Perhaps some friend who was a sea-captain in- 
vited him. 

The signature is the same as that of number 11 
and three of the readings of it might as well be 
recorded in the hope that one of them will finally 
become authoritative. Hereafter this catalogue 


14 


A ALW1d 





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PO ay OP 
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JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


will follow the V. I. Catalogue and other authori- 
ties in the use of the first of the three trans- 
literations given below: 


Saki no Hokusai I-itsu 
Zen Hokusai I-itsu 
Zen Hokusai Tamekazu 


Publisher Mori. Date probably 1832. 
Size 102 x 143. 


Numbers 13 to 16 are from “The Hundred 
Poems Explained by the Nurse,” an unfinished 
set, twenty-seven sheets of which were published 
by Yeijudo in 1839. Drawings have been repro- 
duced of six other designs for the same series 
that for some reason were not published. All 
the prints of this set are signed Saki no (or Zen) 
Hokusai Manji, and measure approximately 10 
X 15 inches. 

The most famous of all Japanese anthologies, 
the Hyaku-nin Isshiu or ‘‘Hundred Poems,” was 
collected in the year 1235 and no poet was repre- 
sented in it by more than a single “Tanka”’ or 
lyric of five lines containing thirty-one syllables. 
All of these hundred poems are perfectly fa- 
miliar to-day to Japanese of even the slightest 
education, as they have been familiar to all at 
least for the seven hundred years since they 
were collected. The earliest of them, in fact 
most of them, were written centuries before the 


15 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


anthology was compiled, and the language is 
pure Japanese, Chinese words, which even then 
were familiar to scholars, being rigidly excluded. 
Japanese poetry is obscure at the best, and in 
many of these old poems the obscurities, the 
“pivot words,” the references, require a com- 
mentary longer than the verses themselves. A 
number of them are by no means simple to the 
Japanese, and what is perfectly clear to them 
may be dark to us. 

Hokusai’s pictures often are not exactly illus- 
trative of the poems, and in such cases his title 
“The Hundred Poems Explained by the Nurse,” 
gives the clue. The picture is a Ukiyo-ye tray- 
esty; it shows how a person of the common peo- 
ple, the proletariat for whom prints were made 
and to which Hokusai belonged by birth if not 
by genius, might visualize the scenes of these 
classical poems of an old courtly life, and trans- 
late the remote allusions into terms of common 
daily experience. ‘The stiff brocades, the gleam- 
ing silks of the poets tend to become in these 
pictures the poor garments of peasants. 

Two of the translations quoted are taken from 
those by Mr. William N. Porter who has pub- 
lished the most readable English version of the 
old anthology, but who adopted for his renderings 
a verse form that is not Japanese. The trans- 
lations and particularly the notes of Mr. F. V. 
Dickins and others have suggested certain alter- 
ations. In some instances the rendering given 


16 


14 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


1s a wholly new attempt to express the meaning 
in English verse. 


HOKUSAI (Poem number I1) 


Washerwomen carrying clothes up from a river. 
In the village above, wash is hung out to dry. 
The poem is by the Empress Jito who reigned 
from 690 to 696 and whose reign 1s made notable 
by the first brewing and drinking of saké at that 
time. 


The spring has gone, the summer’s come, 
And I can just descry 

The hidden peak of Ama, 
Where angels of the sky 
Spread their white robes to dry. 


The reference seems to be to a story made famous 
centuries later in Hagoromo or “The Feather 
Mantle,” one of the finest of NO dramas, wherein 
it is recounted how a fisherman finds hanging on 
a pine branch the magical feather mantle of some 
celestial being—Angel or Moon-Maiden—and re- 
fuses to give it up until she shall perform before 
him one of the Heavenly dances. 

Publisher Yeijudo. 


HOKUSAI (Poem number LXVIII) 


A Shinto ceremony in honor of the full moon. 

The poem, which is in the mood of Matthew 
Arnold’s “Self-Dependence”’ and “A Summer 
Night,” was written by the Emperor Sanjé who, 
after a reign of three short years that were filled 


17 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


with misfortune, abdicated in the year 1016. 
None of the verse translations that have been 
made hitherto read like poetry, and a new at- 
tempt is no more successful; the meaning, how- 
ever, iS approximately as follows: 


If in this world of sorrow 
With grief I must abide— 

Oh tranquil Moon, to borrow 

Thy calm, to man denied! 


Subject reproduced from a pale printing, Spauld- 
ing Catalogue, No. 499, and, with a richer effect 
of moonlight, Sotheby Catalogue of October 18, 
1920, No. 84. 

Publisher Yeijudo. 


HOKUSAI (Poem number XI) 


Divers for Awabi at Ise. 

The awabi is a kind of shell or shell-fish (Haliotis) 
known, on account of its shape, as the “ear of 
the sea.”” Themeat is eaten in Japan, and from 
the shell is derived a variety of mother-of-pearl 
which is used chiefly in the decoration of lacquer, 
its use being a specialty of the Somada family of 
lacquerers. The most highly prized mother-of- 
pearl is said to have come from the Ryikyt 
Islands and may have furnished the reason why 
Hokusai’s suppositious sea-faring friend of Num- 
ber 12 was going there. Utamaro did a notable 
triptych on the subject and Kunisada as well 
used the theme in one of his more successful 


18 


16 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


landscapes. It will be noted that the divers are 
always women, while the men handle the boats. 
The poem is by Takamura, a Privy Councillor of 
the ninth century, who became rich so quickly 
after his appointment as Custom-house officer 
in charge of the trade with China that he was 
investigated and deported. It is while he was 
being rowed away that he is said to have com- 
posed and sung, or shouted, these lines. Later 
he was recalled and pardoned. The translation 
is that of Mr. Porter: 


Oh! Fishers in your little boats, 
Quick! tell my men, I pray, 
They’ll find me at Yasoshima; 
I’m being rowed away 
Far off across the bay. 
Subject reproduced in color from a less brilliant 
impression, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 347. 


HOKUSAI (Poem number X XVIII) 


Peasant hunters or foresters warming themselves 
at dusk by a great log fire outside a hut on a 
snow-covered mountain-side. 

The composition of this design, with the sweep 
of the fire and the spotting of color, makes the 
print one of the most important and admired 
of the set. 

The poem is by Minamoto no Muneyuki, a court 
official and the scion of a great house, who died 
inthe yearg4o. It may be rendered in the orig- 
inal form: 


19 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


Friends have gone from me, 
The grass and leaves are withered; 
Ah, how remembrance 
Makes winter-time more lonely 
Here, in this mountain hamlet. 


Subject reproduced, Focillon, “ Hokusai,’ Plate 
XIX, and Miller Collection, Sotheby, 1911, No. 
207. 

Publisher Yeijudo. 


HOKUSAI 


The Bridge of Boats at Sano, province of Kosuke. 
Snow scene. 

From the series numbering eleven sheets en- 
titled “Views of Famous Bridges in Different 
Provinces.”’ 

This print, usually known by its Japanese title, 
Funabashi, is considered the finest of the set. 
Subject reproduced, Ficke Catalogue, No. 393, 
and in color, Bing’s. “Artistic Japan,”’ Vol. V, 
No. 25. 

The signature is the same as that discussed under 
Number 12. 

Publisher Yeijudo. Date 1827-1830. 

Size 10X15. 


The following seventeen numbers belong to 
what is now, without doubt, the best-known and 
most popular of Hokusai’s sets, the ‘‘Thirty-Six 
Views of Fuji.” Actually there are forty-six 


20 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


prints in the full set, ten supplementary views 
having been added—a proof, if proof were 
needed, that its success was immediate. Impres- 
sions were taken until the blocks were worn out; 
changes in design appear to have been made by 
Hokusai himself; cutters of new blocks failed to 
copy exactly; probably there were pirated edi- 
tions; and certainly, later printers, if not the 
earlier ones as well, used their own discretion in 
the choice and application of color. One who 
wishes to study the etchings of Rembrandt, or 
Whistler, or Meryon, can turn to catalogues 
that will tell everything he needs to know 
about the different states, but in spite of all that 
has been written about Hokusai’s work in gen- 
eral and the Fuji Set in particular, compara- 
tively little attention has been given to details. 
Mr. Will H. Edmunds pointed out some of the 
differences in prints of this set in The Burlington 
Magazine for January, 1922, but that is a mere 
beginning; scholarship concerning Japanese prints 
is still in its infancy, and the best that can be 
done here is for the writer to set down, for con- 
firmation or refutation by later students, a few 
of his own personal beliefs and theories regarding 
the “Thirty-Six Views of Fuji.” | 

It is his opinion that the first edition is the 
best and that at least the earlier impressions of 
_it were printed under the supervision of the ar- 
tist. He believes that prints of the first edition, 
with two exceptions, always bear the seal of the 


21 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


publisher, Yeijudo, and the round Kiwame seal 
of approval, both of which were omitted in most 
later but almost contemporary printings; that 
the outlines from the key block and the titles 
were printed in blue, at least for the first thirty- 
six views, and possibly in black for the supple- 
mentary ten, the issuing of which may have 
coincided with an early but second edition of the 
others, which may also have borne the publish- 
er’s mark. It is generally stated that blues and 
blacks were used indiscriminately with each re- 
inking of the block, but study and comparison 
may show some systematic regularity, and de- 
tails are given here to bring one step nearer 
completion the record begun in the British Mu- 
seum Catalogue. In many of the prints of the 
series those that have the most beautiful coloring 
and are most carefully printed are almost en- 
tirely in varying tones of blue. The edges of 
the cartouches in which the titles appear were 
the first things in the blocks to wear down and 
consequently are sharper and more clearly de- 
fined in earlier impressions than in later. 

For the purposes of this exhibition there is no 
reason to give the full titles of the prints in Jap- 
anese, nor is it necessary to describe in detail what 
is obvious to the observer. The subjects have 
been described many times, and best of all by 
Mr. Laurence Binyon, who has adopted in his 
British Museum Catalogue a sensible geographi- 
cal arrangement of the set, which should supplant 


22 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


speedily the illogical order of De Goncourt. The 
seventeen shown here are arranged in their order 
merely for convenience of exhibition. 

The size of prints in this set ts approximately 10 
x 15 inches, and, as was said before, the reading 
of signatures will follow the form adopted by the 
V. I. Catalogue. The date of the series is from 
1823 to 1829. 

Those that have been selected from the ‘“‘ Views 


_ of Fuji” follow, under Numbers 18 to 34. 


19 


HOKUSAI 

Fuji above the Lightning. (Binyon, 2). 

This subject and the next one are the two upon 
which the compiler cannot recall having seen the 
publisher’s mark, the reason for its omission prob- 
ably being that there was no good place to put it. 
There is a poor and probably late variation with 
the tops of trees showing in the lower part of the 
print. 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 
246, and in color by C. J. Holmes, “ Hokusai,” 
Plate XI, as well as in the Catalogue of prints 
owned by the Louvre, Vol. II, Plate 15. 

Signed Hokusai aratame (changed to) I-itsu. 
Blue outline. 


HOKUSAI 


Fuji in clear weather at dawn. (Binyon, 1). 
The impression exhibited is of the usual state. 
Sometimes the mountain is printed in pink in- 


23 


20 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


stead of flame-red,—a form preferred by many. 
There is one variant with a slightly different 
cloud block and another very poor one in which 
most of the clouds are omitted and the moun- 
tain is printed in blue and green. 

Fuji is 12,395 feet high, which is over 1600 feet 
higher than /Ztna. Neither one can quite be 
counted among the tallest peaks of the world; but 
probably there is no other mountain that ap- 
proaches either of these in beauty and impres- 
siveness, for each is alone, the one rising with 
its marvellous line from low foot-hills, and the 
other curving upward from an opalescent sea. 
The slopes of Fuji often are hidden in mist, for 
Japan is the rainiest country in the world, but 
sometimes, far above where one is watching for 
it, a white wraith comes, flower-like, for an in- 
stant, and is gone. /£tna is farther south and is 
seen in clearer light; but there is something magi- 
cal about Fuji which may be due in part to the 
fact that it is so often completely veiled from its 
worshippers or seen only as a white cone floating 
between earth and heaven. 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 
244. 

Signed Hokusai aratame I-itsu. Blue outline. 
No seal. 


HOKUSAI 

Fuji seen from Hodogaya. (Binyon, 29). 

The doubling-up of the passenger in the kago 
24 


2 


— 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


shows why Occidentals in general, and Mr. John 
La Farge in particular, have had much to say 
against that method of traveling; and, inciden- 
tally, the pole comes just where one would nat- 
urally put his head. The forward bearer is 
typical of Hokusai—a figure and a face that 
he seems to have drawn again and again. 

This is one of the few subjects in which most of 
the impressions with blue predominating are 
not as satisfactory as those of the coloring of 
the one exhibited, which has the foreground, 
etc. in green. (For an explanation of the hat 
and costume of the traveler on the right, see 
Grolier Club: Catalogue of Figure Prints, Num- 
ber 34.) 

Print reproduced, Blanchard Catalogue, No. 191. 
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, 
No. 259. 

Signed Saki no Hokusai I-itsu. Blue outline. 
No seal. 


HOKUSAI 

Fujimihara. (Binyon, 45). 

Fuji seen through an enormous tub in which a 
cooper is at work caulking the seams. 

An extraordinary composition that no artist 
except Hokusai would have thought of. 
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, 
No. 240. 

Signed Hokusai aratame I-itsu. Blue outline. 
No seal. 


25 


22 


23 


24 


25 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


HOKUSAI 


Fuji seen from the shore at Tago. (Binyon, 31). 
Subject reproduced, V.1.Catalogue, Vol.V, No. 262. 
Signed Saki no Hokusai I-itsu. Blue outline. 
No seal. 


HOKUSAI 


Fuji seen beneath a great log supported on 
trestles, among the mountains of Totomi. (Bin- 
yon, 33). 

Another extraordinary composition, as well as an 
illustration of the adage that the Japanese do 
everything in a manner exactly opposite to the 
Occidental way of doing it. 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 
252, and in color, Perzynski, “ Hokusai,” p. 80. 
Signed Saki no Hokusai I-itsu. Blue outline. 
Sealed Yeijudo. 


HOKUSAI 

A gust of wind at Yejiri. (Binyon, 3). 

This is a fine representation of the sweep of wind, 
and is a particularly fine impression. 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 
2677. 

Signed Saki no Hokusai I-itsu. Blue outline. 
Sealed Yeijudo. 


HOKUSAI 


The Lumber Yard. Tatekawa. (Binyon, 13). 
Bamboo is stacked upright, probably because it 


26 


26 


27 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


is less likely to rot in that position. The Japan- 
ese are particularly fond of this subject. 

Subject reproduced, V. 1. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 
268. 

Signed Saki no Hokusai J-itsu. Black outline. 
Sealed Yeijudo. 


HOKUSAI 


View of Fuji from Ono Shinden. (Binyon, 4). 
It is very seldom that these prints are seen in 
impressions of such quality as those exhibited. 
They bear every indication of being early. This 
one, however, has the outline and lettering in 
black; and it is worthy of notice that the British 
Museum impression catalogued by Mr. Binyon, 
which also bears the publisher’s seal, had the 
same black on the key block. 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 
Jan, 0 

Signed Saki no Hokusai I-itsu. Sealed Yeijudo. 


HOKUSAI 


Fuji seen from where the ferry crosses the Sumida 
River near the Rydgoko Bridge in Yedo. (Bin- 
yon, 21). 

Note the sweeping curves of the composition set 
off by the vertical line of the fishing pole. 
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 
283. 

Signed Saki no Hokusai I-tsu. Blue outline. 
Sealed Yeijudo. 


27 


28 


29 


30 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


HOKUSAI 

Fuji seen between the piers of Mannen Bridge 
(Binyon, 12). 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 
269, and in color from a different printing, C. J. 
Holmes, “Hokusai,”’ Plate 13. 

Signed Hokusai aratame I-itsu. Blue outline. 
No seal. 


HOKUSAI 

The big tree. Mishima. (Binyon, 40). 
Localities depicted in the landscapes of Hokusai 
and Hiroshige are often easily recognizable, the 
prints being in many cases like illustrations of a 
guide book. Both artists did this great tree 
which is, or was, in Koshiu, and in both pictures 
travelers (tourists?) are shown with linked hands 
and outstretched arms, measuring its girth. 
Subject reproduced, V. I.Catalogue, Vol.V, No. 256. 
Signed Saki no Hokusai I-itsu. Blue outline. 
No seal. 


HOKUSAI 
Fuji seen from Tsukuda Island. (Binyon, 25). 
This impression, which is printed entirely in vary- 


‘ing tones of blue, is reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, 


Vol. V, No. 276, and Rouart Catalogue, No. 609. 
A different impression is reproduced in color, 
Perzynski, “ Hokusai,”’ p. 64. 
Signed Saki no Hokusai I-itsu. Blue outline. 
Sealed Yeijudo. 

28 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


31 HOKUSAI 


Kajikazawa. A cormorant fisher on a rock, 
beside him an attendant with the bamboo drum 
(kakko) which is used in cormorant fishing to 
excite the birds and keep them at work. (Bin- 
yon, 41). 
A superb and very early impression, entirely in 
blue, of one of Hokusai’s greatest prints; later 
printings have the rock in green, or green and 
yellow, and sometimes the coats in red. 
One hesitates to disagree with anything so por- 
tentous as the British Museum or with so delight- 
ful a person as its cataloguer of Japanese wood- 
cuts, but if Mr. Binyon will place himself on the 
edge of a rock and endeavor to haul in a wet fish 
net, he will find that he does not take the position 
of the man in the print. Neither he nor | will 
ever see what is at the end of the lines, but the 
writer would go to the stake for his belief that 
it is cormorants. In fact, the guide-books state 
that day-time cormorant-fishing, without boats, 
_ may still be seen not far from Kajikazawa to-day. 
The better-known form, as practised from boats 
by night at Gifu, is very amusingly described in 
Chamberlain’s “Things Japanese.” 
Subject reproduced from an impression con- 
siderably trimmed at the top, V. I. Catalogue, 
Vol. V, No. 272. 
Signed Saki no Hokusai I-itsu. Blue outline. 
Sealed Yeijudo. 


29 


32 


33 


34 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


HOKUSAI 


Fuji seen from Ushibori. A big junk moored in 
the foreground. (Binyon, 36). 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 
250, and in color from a later impression that 
introduced pink and yellow, Japan Society Cat- 
alogue, 1913, No. 218. A comparison between 
the edges of the cartouches in the print repro- 
duced by the Japan Society and the one exhibited 
here will show conclusively which is earlier, and 
the other, with its more complicated coloring, 
lacks the seal. 

Signed Saki no Hokusai I-itsu. Blue outline. 
Sealed Yeijudo. ; 


HOKUSAI 


Fuji from Suwa Lake. (Binyon, 34). 

In later impressions where some of these blue 
tones are replaced by other colors the print is 
less effective. 

Print reproduced, Spaulding Catalogue, No. 658. 
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 
251, and in color, Bing, “Artistic Japan,” Vol. I, 
No. 4. 

Signed Saki no Hokusai I-itsu. Blue outline. 
Sealed Yeijudo. 


HOKUSAI 


The Great Wave. Kanagawa. (Binyon, 28). 
A superb impression of what is probably Hoku- 


30 


35 


36 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


sais most famous print. A later edition intro- 
duces a heavy brown cloud block which spoils 
the effect. 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 
258, and in color from an ineffective impression in 
which the boats are yellow and the wave almost 
black, C. J. Holmes, “Hokusai,”’ Plate XII. An- 
other color reproduction is in the catalogue pub- 
lished by the Louvre of prints in its collection, 
Vol. II, Plate 14. This reproduction, like that in 
the V. I. Catalogue, fails to show the mist or 
clouds which should appear, as in the impression 
exhibited, delicately printed against the sky. 
Signed Hokusai aratame I-itsu. Blue outline. 
No seal. 


HOKUSAI 


Mandarin Ducks, 

The print is probably from the Shashin Gwafu or 
“Drawings from Nature” published in 1814, but 
differs from those impressions of the subject 
which are reproduced in color in Bing, “Artistic 
japan,” Vol. II, No. 7. 

Size 97 X 14}- 


HOKUSAI 


Morning-glories and Tree-toad. A sheet from 
what is commonly known as the “Large Flower 
Set.” 

Subject reproduced, V. 1. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 
304; and in color, Binyon and Sexton, Plate XV. 


st 


°F 


38 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


Signed Saki no Hokusai I-itsu. Published by 
Yeijudo. Attributed to the year 1828. 
3ize OF X 145. 


HOKUSAI 


Fan. Cock, Hen and Chickens. 

As fan prints probably were not published in 
large editions and may occasionally have been 
designed for private order, duplicate impressions 
are seldom seen. 

Print reproduced, Kinbei Murata Catalogue of 
October, 1919. 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 
332. 

Signed Saki no Hokusai I-itsu. Publisher Ya- 
mata. 

Size 83 x 114. 


HOKUSAI 


Fan. Pheasant and Snake. 

Subject reproduced by the Osaka Daily News in 
its supplement illustrating the exhibition, held 
in its galleries (1922), of prints from the Collec- 
tion of Mr. Kojiro Matsukata. 

An impression from the Vever Collection is de- 
scribed, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 335. 
Signed Saki no Hokusai I-itsu. Publisher Tsu- 
jilyasu. 

Date about 1835. 

Size 82 x 113. 


32 


39 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


TOYOHIRO (1763 (?)-1828) 


Toyohiro, a not very prolific artist, but one 
whose work shows occasionally considerable sen- 
sitiveness and distinction, was a fellow-pupil with 
Toyokuni in the studio of Toyoharu. 


TOYOHIRO 
Surimono. Flowers and Wild Grasses. 


Signed Toyohiro. The seal is that of a collector. 
Size 7% X 21. 


Surimono, literally translated, means printed 
thing. The term is used to indicate prints of a 
particular variety that were issued for special 
occasions. Most of them were made on private 
order to be distributed among the acquaintances 
of the people who ordered them, and were not 
for sale. They were sent out at New Year’s and 
at the flower festivals, at weddings and to an- 
nounce the birth of children; if you changed 
your name, or wished to invite your friends to a 
party you had one; they were issued to announce 
the winning poems in local competitions ;—in 
short, whenever the Occidental would go to a 
fashionable stationer to have something engraved 
or printed with special care for some occasion, 
the Japanese of the middle classes either or- 
dered a surimono or designed one himself. 
Numbers 4-9 of this exhibition are surimono 
by Hokusai who, if he made one each time he 
changed his name or moved to a new address, 


33 


40 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


certainly had ample opportunity to become pro- 
ficient in the art. 

In a surimono the text—now often lost—was of 
more importance than the picture which, in many 
instances, became merely a symbol or vague allu- 
sion exquisitely rendered. 

In the printing of surimono all the resources of 
technical sophistication were exhausted; usually 
they were printed on heavier paper with much 
gauffrage and blind printing; hair was rendered 
delicately, never in strong black; and in typical 
examples the total effect was heightened by the 
lavish use of gold, silver and copper which gave 
the print a brilliant metallic lustre, this device 
being more commonly employed in later suri- 
mono than in the earlier ones. The best special 
account of surimono in general is the tenth chap- 
ter of “Japanese Color Prints” by Edward F. 
Strange (Victoria and Albert Museum Hand- 
book). It need only be added that the special 
technique developed to its completion after 1800. 


TOYOKUNI (1769-1825) 


TOYOKUNI 

Surimono. A white rabbit in a red coat, writing. 
Ages ago, when the world was young and the 
gods, or the sons of the gods, were accustomed 
to walk therein, the white rabbit who lived in 
the island of Oki, near Korea whence so many 


34 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


things have come, desired ardently to go to Japan. 
But rabbits are poor swimmers, the straits are 
broad and some means of crossing had to be de- 
vised; so, after pondering awhile as rabbits do, 
he went to call on a crocodile of his acquaint- 
ance and in the course of conversation wondered 
how many crocodiles there were. The host said 
there were a very great number but that they 
never had been counted, whereupon the guest 
volunteered to run along their backs and count, 
if they would arrange themselves in a line, tail 
to head and head to tail, stretching from the 
coast of Oki toward Japan. 

This was agreed, and when the appointed day 
came the crocodiles gathered from far and near 
and ranged themselves in a line, the tail of the 
first one touching the island shore. The rabbit 
ran blithely along their backs, but when he saw 
that the head of the last one was within jumping 
distance of Japan he could not forbear saying 
that he never had cared at all how many croco- 
diles there were and had not bothered to count 
them, his sole interest being to provide himself 
with a simple and easy way of getting across the 
Straits. With that he jumped, but a second 
too late, for great jaws opened and closed, and 
though the rabbit himself reached the shore, 
most of his skin and all of his fur remained be- 
hind. After that he had rather a bad time of it 
until a kind-hearted god of the country, who 
chanced to be wandering by, took pity on him, 


35 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


and ever since then the white rabbit has been a 
friendly benefactor of the land. He is repre- 
sented in a variety of ways in prints and paint- 
ings, in ivory, on sword guards and in lacquer, 
sometimes, like the rabbits in Daudet, with noth- 
ing to do but chauffer les pattes a un rayon de 
lune and sometimes engaged in all sorts of occu- 
pations. He is in the Zodiac, and certain years 
in Japanese chronology are named for him; a fact 
which accounts for his presence in this New 
Year’s card of some Rabbit Year, probably 1819. 
The first thing that anyone did on New Year Day 
was to write a little, and the rabbit in the pic- 
ture is writing words of felicitation. The poems 
above are signed with poetic names and contain 
rather conventional words of greeting appropri- 
ate to the occasion. 

Signed Toyokuni. 

Size 8} x72. 


HOKKEI (1780-1850) 


The two most important of Hokusai’s pupils 
are Hokkei and Gakutei. Hokkei made many 
fine surimono, a number of landscapes somewhat 
in the manner of his master but of distinctive 
charm, and certain other prints in which he en- 
deavored with considerable success to use the 
surimono technique in the printing of ordinary 
landscape subjects.. There is great delicacy about 


36 


late 


4 


42 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


the best of his work. Hewasa fishmonger before 
he became professionally an artist. 


HOKKEI 

A crowded ferry crossing the Sumida River in the 
rain. 

This print is from a set called Shokoku Meisho or 
“Views of Various Provinces.” 

Print reproduced, May Catalogue, No. 919. Sub- 
ject reproduced, Jacquin Catalogue, No. 195. 
Signed Aoigaoka (or Totoya) Hokkei, a signature 
which may be translated Hokkei of the Hill of 
Hollyhocks. For note on the flower, the Japan- 
ese name of which is Aoi, see Number 66. 

Size 7 X 15. 


HOKKEI 
Peasants being ferried across the Sumida. One 
of them points to the moon. 
Japanese artists are fond of making pictures in 
sets of three which show respectively the beau- 
ties of Moonlight, Snow and Flowers. This print 
and the next are from such a set and illustrate 
Hokkei’s use in landscape of surimono printing 
in gauffrage and silver. To appreciate the quality 
and color of surimono they should be examined 
carefully and, if possible, from the side as well as 
from a position directly in front of them. 
Print reproduced, Blanchard Catalogue, No. 160. 
Subject reproduced, V. 1. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 
385. 

a7 


43 


44 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


Signed Hokkei. Sealed Awaka. 
Size 10 X 133. 


HOKKEI 


Flower-viewing beside the Tatsuta River. 
Tatsuta and the little river of its name are near 
Nara, the ancient capital, and only a mile or two 
from famous Horyuji, which is the oldest existing 
Buddhist temple in Japan and was completed in 
the year 607 of our chronology. The locality has 
been noted since time immemorial for the splen- 
dor of its maples in their autumnal color. 

This print is from the same set as the preced- 
ing, the maples taking the place of flowers. 
Signed Hokkei. 

Size 10 X 134. 


HOKKE]I 


Surimono. Lovers of old, boating. The shores 
which border the silver ripples of a mountain 
lake are white under the thin snow of Spring, 
new-fallen on pine branches. 

This exquisite surimono was issued by the “Ak- 
aba Club” to announce the winning poems in a 
competition, and is respectfully brought to the 
attention of Committees on Announcements of 
similar organizations in America. 

The poems are printed in gold against the black. — 
There are three, and the general gist of each is as 
follows: 


38 


45 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


I 
The beautiful snow of Spring seems itself to 
have become fragrant falling on plum blos- 
soms. 


(See Grolier Club: Catalogue of Figure Prints, 
Number 8.) 
II 


Like stars are the plum blossoms above us; 
may our love endure like the stars! 


The remaining poem requires some annotation: 
In old legend, Okina is the enchanted boat of 
faithful lovers; there is a NO drama of the same 
name which symbolizes happiness and long life, 
and there may be a pun on the word to indicate 
the date-year of the Dog, probably 1814 or 1826. 
It must be further observed that in old Japan- 
ese chronology Spring might begin before the 
old year had ended. The costumes are those of 
the long-ago. 
II] 

As the departing year meets the Spring, so 

we have met, and glide over happy waters as 

it were in the boat of Faithful Love. 


Signed Hokkei. 
size 8 x 73. 
HOKKEI 


Surimono. A white cock on a war-drum half 
buried in leaves. , 
The subject is symbolic of peace, the allusion 


ao 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


being to the legendary story of a Chinese Em- 
peror, the war-drums outside whose palace were 
long disused. The surimono was issued at New 
Year of some year of the Cock, probably 1825. 
The poem, which is signed Zuido Akegarasu, 
reads: . 


With the first crow of the cock, the New 
Year dawns; and the glad news seems to re- 
sound through a thousand hamlets. 


Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 
380. 

Signed Kiko Hokkei. Sealed Aoioka Hokkel. 
Size 84 X 7#. 


GAKUTEI 


Gakutei, who was better known in Japan as a 
writer than as a print-designer, is said to have 
studied under Hokkei as well as under Hokusai. 
He made many surimono of somewhat variable 
quality, the best being among the most notable 
productions of their kind. The dates of Gaku- 
tei’s birth and death are unknown but the period 
of his production may be set down approxi- 
mately as from about 1810 to 1840. 


46 GAKUTEI 
Surimono from a set of five. 
A bearded Chinese hero on a sort of throne- 
chair on a verandah. His great pike is beside 
him and on his knees is a harp of seven strings, 


40 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


an old Chinese form of instrument said to have 
been used by Confucius. The figure represents 
“The Five-Tiger General’? whose deeds are re- 
counted in an enormously long Chinese romance 
which was translated about this time by the 
popular novelist Bakin, and published with the 
Japanese title Suiko-den. Probably the surimo- 
no was issued as a compliment to Bakin or in 
reference to the success of the novel. The 
poems, which are signed with fanciful names, 
Rope-man and Rice-leaf, read: 


I 
As he takes out and plays his harp the wind 
in the pine tree outside the gate accompanies 
him. 


II 
He is waiting for the happy time when man 
and wife will be in accord like the strings of 
the harp. 


It may be said in passing that most poems made 
up for occasions and printed on surimono have 
lost their point and, having little literary value, 
lack interest for us. 

Signed Gakutei Teiko. 

Size GEOR 79) 


47 GAKUTEI 


Surimono from a series of ‘‘Three Scenes in the 
Life of Michizane,” for whose career the reader is 


AI 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


referred to the Grolier Club’s Catalogue of Fig- 
ure Prints, Numbers 21 and 117, and especially 
to Number 8 of the present catalogue. 

The print may represent Michizane engaged in 
the same occupation—New Year’s writing—as 
the rabbit of Number 4o. Behind him and be- 
side a screen stands another man, holding books. 
The poems, as phrased by Mr. Ficke, read: 


I 
Conforming to the ceremonial laws 
For the first writing of the New Year, 
I break the ice on my ink-tablet 
And compose a poem, in the Chinese manner, 
Concerning the nightingale of Spring. 


I] 
On the second night of the New Year 
Even the people of China 
Will dream of the shape of the Japanese Fuji- 
yama. 
II] 
There was a great poet in China. 
He learned his art from the worm that eats the 
books. 
This morning a nightingale is chanting 
More than all the songs of China. 
I wonder if perhaps he has eaten the book- 
worm? 


Print reproduced, Ficke Catalogue, No. 377. 
Signed Gakutei. 
Size 83 X 7. 

42 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


HIROSHIGE (1797-1858) 


If one should name the six foremost design- 
ers of Japanese prints as Harunobu, Kiyonaga, 
Utamaro, Sharaku, Hokusai and Hiroshige, he 
would find few, if any, to contradict him. The 
comparative number of prints by which the first 
four of these artists and the last two have been rep- 
resented in these exhibitions 1s, of course, utterly 
disproportionate; but in the Exhibition of Figure 
Prints the work of thirty-one different men was 
shown as adequately as was possible, while in 
the field of Landscape- and Bird-prints Hokusai 
and Hiroshige stand almost alone, summing up, 
in themselves, well-nigh the whole glory of that 
brief second flowering of the art. 

Like Hokusai, Hiroshige was enormously pro- 
lific, and since he devoted much less of his time 
to book-illustration, the number of his separate 
color prints is very large. One American col- 
lection contains 1700 different subjects by Hiro- 
shige. Naturally the comparative recentness 
of his prints, combined with the large editions in 
which many of them were issued, has tended to 
make them survive. Hokusai saw things real- 
istically and in clear, strong light; Hiroshige was 
more like a Northern artist—romantic, a lover of 
mist and moonlight. The work of Hokusai ts 
more astonishing, more brilliant, and in his 
finest prints shows a high quality of imagination, 
rising suddenly and surely from perfect crafts- 


43 


48 


49 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


manship to great art. Hiroshige seldom or never 
aspires quite so high, but in average quality the 
best of his very variable work is more imagina- 
tive, more sensitive, more appealing than that 
of the extraordinary genius who pointed for him 
the way he was tofollow. Some prefer strength, 
some delicacy; each has its place in art; but there 
can be no possible question of the beauty of 
Hiroshige’s finer prints when they are seen in 
early and well-preserved impressions. 

The prints of Hiroshige have been described and 
catalogued so many times, and, most notably, 
in connection with the exhibition held in Tokyo 
to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the 
artist’s death, that details as to sets and editions, 
which can be found in many books and cata- 
logues, will be omitted here. 

Prints are shown because they are beautiful, 
and the enjoyment of them is too often dis- 
turbed by obtrusive questions of technical detail 
or of scholarship. 


HIROSHIGE 


Fan print. A fishing basket floating on a stream 
below a pine branch. 

Signed Hiroshige. Sealed. Dated June 1854. 
Size 8 x 107. 


HIROSHIGE 


Fan print. A ferry boat withamonkey-showman, 
a monkey in a little pink coat and straw hat, and 


44 


50 


5 


— 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


other passengers, one of whom points out a 
cuckoo flying by. 

Signed Hiroshige. Publisher Yamata. 

Size 9% X I1f. 


HIROSHIGE 


Fan print. Catching fireflies at the Ugi River, 
near Kyoto. 

From a series of ‘‘Viewsof the Various Provinces.” 
The catching of fireflies is one of those happy 
diversions in which the Japanese delight, the va- 
riety of firefly called Genji, which gives the finest 
light, being particularly admired. Exquisite lit- 
tle cages are made for them, and in the proper 
season whole populations will go to favorite lo- 
calities where fireflies can be seen to the greatest 
advantage. Singing insects are the objects of 
equal devotion, and Lafcadio Hearn has written 
charming essays on both varieties, with transla- 
tions of many poems about them, which are as 
quaint as they are lovely. 

Signed Hiroshige. Publisher Dansendo. 

Size 83 x 112. 


HIROSHIGE 


Fan print. Flare fishing off Tsukuda Island. 
From the same series as Number 50. 
Print reproduced, Rouart Catalogue, No. 210. 
Signed Hiroshige. Publisher Dansendo. 
Size 8% x 11%. 

45 


52 


53 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


HIROSHIGE 


Fan print in deep blue with white reserve. 

This striking print is a view of the Tonogawa at 
Konodai. 

Signed Hiroshige and with his diamond-shaped 
seal. The lower round seal appears to be that of 
the censor, Fukushima Giyemon. The upper one 
probably is a date seal of about 1850, but has not 
been deciphered. 

Size 83 x 103. (Frontispiece). 


HIROSHIGE 


Long-tailed Bird and Peach Blossoms. 

During the long peace of the Tokugawa Shogun- 
ate there had been among the middle classes a 
slow effeminization of the ancient spirit of Ja- 
pan—the spirit of the Samurai. The tale of the 
Forty-seven Ronin met with vast popular ap- 
proval in the theatre, but the public for whom 
prints were made preferred for themselves what 
Hiroshige had to give them—not the eagles of 
Motonobu, but birds of springtime and of gar- 
dens, poised among delicate blossoms. The bird 
prints of Hiroshige have the exquisiteness, the 
charm of all that is most delicately feminine. The 
poem on this print reads: 


By what happy chance flame thy peach- 
flowers, now, O Garden? 
It is very difficult to date these bird-and-flower 
prints accurately; and the attempt to do so will 
46 


54 


55 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


not be made here. It may be said, however, 
that the Hiroshige Memorial Catalogue considers 
the earliest of them as of about 1832, and it is 
likely that most of them were published be- 
tween that date and 18 0. 

Subject reproduced, Blanchard Catalogue, No. 
518. 

Signed Hiroshige. Sealed Ichiryusai. 

>1ze 5 X 75. 


HIROSHIGE 


Blue Titmouse and Camellia, on a blue back- 
ground. 

Signed Hiroshige. Sealed Ichiryusai. 

Size 10 X 4f. 


HIROSHIGE 


Small Bird and Poppies. 
The poem reads: 


Frail are the petals, 
So frail I fear lest they fall 
In the wind of wings. 


Sometimes these little poems, which are as ex- 
quisite and charming as the prints themselves, 
can be rendered, as above, in the exact metrical 
form of the original. 
Subject reproduced, Metzgar Catalogue of 1916, 
No. 711, and Metzgar Catalogue of 1919, No. g10. 
Signed Hiroshige. Sealed [chiryusai. 
Size 1334 x 42. 

47 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


56 HIROSHIGE 


Morning-glories. 
The poem is signed Gyoko and reads: 
The morning-glory on the bamboo lattice 


lives only through the brief hour of our 
watching. 


The subject, with slight variations and without 
the poem, is reproduced as No. 248 in the Metz- 
gar Catalogue of 1916. 

Signed Hiroshige. Published by Kawa-sho. 
Size 13 x43. 


57 HIROSHIGE 


Pinks and Lace-flower. 
The poem on this print is translated tentatively: 
Lace-flower, your structure is as delicate 


as the silver inlay on the rivet-cover of 
a sword-hilt. 


Subject reproduced, Hiroshige Memorial Cata- 
logue, No. 46, and in color, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. 
VI, No. 250. 
Signed Hiroshige. Publisher Kawaguchi Shozo 
or Kawa-sho. 
Size 15 X 5%- 


58 HIROSHIGE 


Bird with long blue tail, asleep on a drooping 
branch hung with peach-blossoms. 
The three brief lines of the poem mean literally; 


48 


59 


60 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


“Day-break—bird rests—branch of peach-blos- 
soms’’; and may be translated: 


Still when the dawn comes 
Does the bird on the peach-bough 
Sleep among blossoms. 


Subject reproduced, No. 909, Metzgar Catalogue 
of 1919. 

Signed Hiroshige. Publisher Kawamasa. 

Size 132 X 43. 


HIROSHIGE 


Kingfisher and Iris. 
Poem: 


Rain on the Iris; and Lo! My sleeves 
that brush them in passing are fragrant. 


Subject reproduced, Orange and Thornicraft Cat- 
alogue, No. 377. 

Signed Hiroshige. Sealed Hiroshige. Many of 
these bird prints bear the round Kiwame seal of 
approval, but it does not seem necessary to call 
attention to it in each case. The subject is dis- 
cussed in the Hiroshige Memorial Catalogue, 
pp. 38-39, and a volume especially devoted to it 
has recently been published in Japan. 

Size 142 X 5. 


HIROSHIGE 

Bird on Wistaria. 

Poem by Hachijintei: 
49 


6 


— 


62 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


Pendulous down from the leaves droop the 
wistaria blossoms, 

Showing the dyer within tints that he fain 
would achieve. 


Subject reproduced, Ficke Catalogue, No. 756. 
Signed Hiroshige. Publisher Shéyeido. 
Size 14% X 5. 


HIROSHIGE 


Sparrows and Poppies. 
The poem is the same as that on number 55: 


Frail are the petals, 
So frail I fear lest they fall 
In the wind of wings. 


Print reproduced, “The Arts,’’ October, 1921, 
eee 

Signed Hiroshige. Publisher Kawa-sho. 

Size 132 x 48. 


HIROSHIGE 


Uguisu on a drooping branch with white blos- 
soms. 

In Japan the Uguisu has “the sweetest voice of all 
God’s creatures.” Occidentals, in compliment 
to its melodiousness, call it the nightingale, but 
mistakenly from the scientific point of view, for 
the two birds are quite different in color and the 
Uguisu sings only in the daytime. The word 
nightingale, however, has overtones for our ears 
and will be used in the rendering of the poem, for 


50 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


the problem of the translator is to convey the 
feeling of the original; and if, on the doubtful 
chance of pleasing some ornithologist, he were to 
call the bird by what appears to be its name, 
Cettia Cantans, his little poem—the fruit of much 
loving and patient labor—would be spoiled. 

It is difficult enough at best to make the trans- 
lation of a miniature Japanese poem remotely re- 
semble poetry, for, in the first place, the nature 
of the English language forbids compression and, 
in the second, a Japanese poet sets down merely 
a few suggestive key-words, unlocking a door for 
the imagination, and the reader is confidently 
expected to make the poem for himself. The 
more sensitive the reader is, the more he has in 
his mind to draw on, the more he gets out of it. 
The hokku on this print is a particularly good 
example because it is considerably more difficult 
than most. The seventeen syllables of the orig- 
inal, arranged in three unrhymed lines of five, 
seven and five syllables each, mean literally: 

O Uguisu (Cettia Cantans)—taxes—two sho, 
five go (a measure of capacity approximately 
equivalent to four quarts). 

This does not appear at first to make much more 
sense than it does poetry, but what would a Jap- 
anese reader find in it? He would know that 
taxes were paid in rice, that the very poorest of 
peasants would only be required to pay an an- 
nual tax of about the amount mentioned, and 
he would visualize and feel the bitter life-long 


51 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


struggle of the very poor; getting from the poem 
a meaning which may be rendered in the original 
form: 


O Nightingale! Sing 
Even to the poor who pay 
The humblest tribute. 


This gives the meaning, but to get the feeling in 
English it is necessary, sometimes, to expand the 
translation and use the Japanese thirty-one syl- 
lable form, like that of ‘“‘“The Hundred Poems,” 
some of Hokusai’s illustrations for which are ex- 
hibited. The poem on the print might be ren- 
dered more adequately in this longer form: 


Yea, for the poorest 
Whose barren field can barely 
Cover the taxes; 
Even for his enjoyment 
Nightingales pour forth music. 


If the poetically-minded reader of this version will 
turn back to the literal, word-for-word transla- 
tion given above, he will see that a number of 
other ideas, equally poetic, are latent in it. A 
translation could be made, for example, which 
would contrast the beauty of the singing bird 
with the sorrow and sordidness of life. The 
Japanese poet merely sets free the imagination, 
as Heredia sets it free occasionally by the final 
line of a sonnet; but after all, the little poem in 
question has been selected for discussion just be- 


52 


63 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


cause it is an extreme example, much more dif- 
ficult than most. 

Print reproduced, “The Arts,’ October, 1921, 
Dols: 

Signed Hiroshige and sealed Ichiryusai. 
Publisher Kawa-sho. 

Size 15 X 53. 


HIROSHIGE 


Crested Yellow Bird and Hibiscus. 

It is impossible to say what kind of a bird this is, 
and there is reason to believe that Hiroshige 
sometimes did not draw from Nature. 

The Japanese name of the flower is Fuyo (see 
note on Number 66). The poem once again is 
but a sigh; regret for the passing of all things 
lovely, for beauty perishing in its moment of per- 
fection, the transitoriness of this exquisite, fleet- 
ing world of sense: 


O Fuyo, fallen at dawn, wet with the dew! 


No verse translation can quite give the brevity 
and pathos of the lines; it should be explained, 
however, that “wet with the dew”’ does not con- 
vey to the Japanese the idea of discomfort that 
it does to us; to them dew is one of the most 
beautiful of evanescent things, a bringer of fra- 
grance, the companion of flowers and of dawn. 
Subject reproduced, Field Catalogue, No. 486. 
Signed Hiroshige. Sealed Ichiryusai. 
Size 15 X 5. 

53 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


64 HIROSHIGE 


65 


Five swallows in tumbling flight above a branch 
from which the blossoms have fallen. 
Poem: 
When twilight deepens, 
Home to the sheltering hills 
Gather the swallows. 


Sometimes, ‘as here, when the little poem can be 
rendered in its Japanese form, it closes naturally 
with the lulling cadence of the Sapphic ending, a 
fact that startles a translator who happens to be 
fond of Greek meters and knows how grudgingly 
they flow into the moulds of English speech. 
Subject reproduced, Happer Catalogue, No. 289. 
Signed Hiroshige. Sealed Ichiryusai. 

Publisher Kawa-shd. 

Size 154 X 5¢. 


HIROSHIGE 


Egret and Iris. 
On the print is a quotation of two lines from a 
Chinese poem: 


When white herons light in a field it is like 
the falling of a thousand flakes of snow, but 
flower-like is the yellow nightingale (Uguisu) 
on a tree. 


All egrets are herons but not all herons are egrets. 
The birds in Numbers 1, 3, 65 and 69 are desig- 
nated in the manner that has become custom- 
ary. 

54 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


There are two or three variations of this subject. 
The state shown is believed to be the original and 
is that reproduced in the V. I. Catalogue, Vol. 
VI, No. 246. 

Signed Hiroshige. Sealed Hiroshige. 

Size 15 x 62 


66 HIROSHIGE 


Blue Bird and Yellow Hibiscus. 
The poem is a Chinese quatrain which has stub- 
bornly refused to allow the foreign devil to do 
anything with it. A half-dozen soothing meters 
have been tried; but when the translation com- 
mences to have a pleasant lilt the meaning has 
escaped, and when the sense is captured again 
the sound becomes barbarous. ‘The plain prose 
of it is: 

Delightful is the breath of the cool autumn wind, 

Dew gathers thick on the hollyhocks; 

The great heat, the cruel torment of summer, have 


passed, 
What now have the palace attendants to do? 


Like ornithology, botany is somewhat outside 
the province of the present cataloguer. The 
flower represented here is called “Aoi,” and the 
dictionary translates it “hibiscus, rose-mallow, 
hollyhock”’ just as it translates the “Fuyo”’ of 
number 63. The safer thing to do is to call 
them both hibiscus and spoil the poem thereby. 
Subject reproduced, Orange and Thornicraft 
Catalogue, No. 380. 


D9 


67 


68 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


Signed Hiroshige. Sealed Ichiryusai. Publisher 
Kawa-sho. 
Size 154 X 5¢. 


HIROSHIGE 


Pheasant and Pine in Snow. 

The pine is associated with the idea of longevity, 
and except for a suggestion in the lines that the 
green of the tree seems deeper after snow has 
come, the Chinese poem on the print might be 
rendered: 


Eternal pine tree! 

Snows of a thousand winters 
Came and have vanished, 
Leaving to thee their beauty,— 

Oh, Long-enduring. 


Subject reproduced, Metzgar Catalogue of 1916, 
No. 246. 

Signed Hiroshige. Sealed Ichiryusai. Publisher 
Kawa-sho. ' 

Size 147 X 543. 


HIROSHIGE 


A sleepy little brown owl on a pine-branch, with 
the white crescent of the twilight moon behind 
him. 
This is one of Hiroshige’s most charming bird- 
prints, and the poem on it—a Tanka by Hachi- 
jintei—is equally delightful: 

56 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


Blissful sails the owl 
In his moon-boat three nights old; 
Yea, and the pine-boughs 
Wind-swept, are harps; but sounded 
Alas! for ears unhearing. 


The Japanese of this is: 


Mika-zuki no 
Fune o yama-shiki 

Mimi-zuku no 
Mimi-ni ere-taki 
Matsu*kaze no koto, 


with its alliteration of M and K; and that, line 
by line, means literally: 


Moon three nights old of— 

Boat—a mountain of (i. e. superlative) pleasure— 
Short-eared owl of— 

Ears but to wish 

Harped pine-breeze 


It may be added that the moon is supposed to be 
most delicately beautiful when it is just three 
nights old; before that it is too thin, later too 
gross. 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, 
No. 252, but numbered wrongly on Plate LXVII. 
Signed Hiroshige. Sealed Yusai. 

Size 142 x 5. 


69 HIROSHIGE 
A white heron standing among reeds. 


57 


790 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


The poem, which is in Chinese, has been trans- 
lated as follows: 


Can this crested head find among reeds a 
dainty food to accord with its delicate, frosty 
garbr 


This, like Number 68, is one of the most admired 
of Hiroshige’s bird-prints. The subject is repro- 
duced, Hiroshige Memorial Catalogue, No. 45; 
V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, No. 251; and in color in 
the Catalogue of Japanese Prints belonging to 
the Louvre, Vol. II, Plate 37. 

Signed Hiroshige. Sealed Ichiryusai. 

Publisher Kawa-sho. 

Size 15 X 5%. 


HIROSHIGE 


Wild ducks in a snowstorm, swimming near a 
snow-laden shore. 
Poem: 


Hark! Ducks are crying;— 
Over the wind-swept water 
Driven by winter. 


Subject reproduced, Hiroshige Memorial Cata- 
logue, No. 39, and in color in the Catalogue of 
Japanese Prints belonging to the Louvre, Vol. II, 
Plate 38. 

Signed Hiroshige. Sealed with a picture of a 
deer and a horse in a cartouche, this being Hiro- 
shige’s Baka or Fool seal, so called because Ba is 


58 





PLATE VI HIROSHIGE NO. 7I 





= 


7 


72 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


the word for horse, Ka the Japanese for deer, 
and the two together, Baka, mean Fool. 
Size 15 x 6%. 


HIROSHIGE 


A small bird on the blossoming branch of a wild 
cherry. 

Occidental poets, at least in their public utter- 
ances, have been models of sobriety as compared 
with their Chinese brethren. The most bibulous 
of them would have felt at home and at ease in 
the bamboo grove or the peach orchard; but 
there is a naive frankness about the Chinese 
that disarms criticism. 

The Chinese poem on this bird-print reads: 


While the fair landscape holds me under blos- 
soming trees, forgetful of returning, the 
spring wind lures me to go and get drunk 
beside the wine cask. 


Signed Hiroshige. Sealed Ichiryusai. 

The other seal is probably that of the poet and 
seems to read Ryoshin-Sho. 

Size 143 x 62. (Plate V1). 


HIROSHIGE 


Swallows and peach-blossoms under the full 
white moon of day. An exquisite print. 

The poem requires the explanation of a word, 
and requires as well, for adequate translation, 
to have the seventeen syllables of the ‘original 
expanded to the thirty-one syllables of the longer 


99 


73 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


form. The word that demands explanation is 
“Sengen.” This is a fabled earthly paradise of 
the Taoists, a place of running water and of 
peach-blossoms, where death comes not, and 
sages, dreamers live in retirement, calmed and 
ennobled by the beauty of Nature, unharassed by 
the world. There is no English equivalent; for 
the Bowers of Bliss of our epics are too passionate, 
and the Islands of the Blest too dim. One part 
of the word is familiar to students of Japanese 
art in “Sennin.” 
Bright on every stream 
Are fallen blossoms floating. 
Now that Spring is here, 
Who could tell where Sengen lies? 
The whole sweet world is Sengen. 


Subject reproduced, Happer Catalogue, No. 57, 
without two of the seals; and in color in the 
Japanese translation of Ficke’s “Chats on Jap- 
anese Prints.”’ 

Signed Hiroshige. Sealed Ichiryusai. 

Publisher Wakasa-ya. (Jakurindo) Poets Seal 
Ryoshin. 

This appears to be a very early impression of the 
first edition; a later printing bears the seal of 
another publisher, Kikakudo. 

Size 142 x 7. 


HIROSHIGE 


Titmouse and Camellia. 
Poem by Kojin: 
60 


74 


73 


76 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


On the fresh-swept lawn, Lo! the camellia falls. 


Print reproduced, Hirakawa Catalogue, No. 334. 
Subject reproduced, Hiroshige Memorial Cata- 
logue, No. 31. 

Signed Hiroshige. Sealed Ichiryusai. 

Size 14% x 6%. 


HIROSHIGE 


A pheasant among pines on a snowy declivity. 
Subject reproduced, Orange and Thornicraft Cat- 
alogue, No. 350. 

Signed Hiroshige. Publisher Jakurindo. 

Size 14% xX 63. 


HIROSHIGE 


Cock, Umbrella and Morning-Glories. 
The Japanese poem is written in Chinese char- 
acters. The English of it as rendered by Mr. 
Ficke is: 
Would that I were living in a land 
Where no cock crew at dawn, 
That I might never hear this melancholy signal 
For parting from my love. 


Subject reproduced, Hiroshige Memorial Cat- 
alogue, No. 35. 

Signed Hiroshige. Sealed Yusai. 

Size 15 X 7. 


HIROSHIGE 


Kingfisher and Hydrangea. 
When the expected botanist and ornithologist 


61 


77 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


are removing the motes from the eye of their 
cataloguing brother, the former may explain why 
the flower here depicted is called in English by 
a Greek word meaning water-vessel, while the 
poem on the print reads: 


You bloom not in water, O Hydrangea, but 
there is the smack of water about you now. 


Subject reproduced in color, V. 1. Catalogue, Vol. 
VI, No. 244. 

Signed Hiroshige. Sealed Yusai. 

Publisher Jakurindo. 

Size 143 x 64. 


HIROSHIGE 


A golden pheasant among snow-laden bamboo 
on a hillside. 

The poem is signed Mamegaki Koharu, and 
reads: 


Even more beautiful than the crested bird 
with his plumage like brocade, is the ex- 
quisite pattern of the fresh snow. 


Print reproduced, Fine Art Society of London, 
Catalogue, 1910, No. 176. 

Subject reproduced, V. 1. Catalogue, Vol. VI, No. 
365. 

Signed Hiroshige. Publisher Marusei. 

Size 102 x 74. 


62 








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78 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


The following four prints are from a rare series 
of twelve (?) “Views of the Environs of Yedo.” 
They have often been referred to as the “Long 
Surimono of Hiroshige,” but they are probably 
more accurately described as his “ Letter-sheet 
Prints.” It seems incredible that any letter- 
writer would venture to inscribe his casual or 
ceremonious words on such delicate works of art 
as these; yet the prevailing opinion is that the 
sheets were designed for precisely this purpose. 
Doubtless they were used on special occasions 
only, and not for ordinary letters; and we may 
even go so far as to assume that the addition of 
a stately Chinese poem or an exquisitely-turned 
New Year’s greeting, when engrossed on the blank 
paper above the landscapes, was not necessarily 
as barbaric an intrusion as our ignorance of beau- 
tiful calligraphy might lead us to fear. No sheet 
thus inscribed has yet come to light. The ex- 
treme rarity of these prints is obviously due to 
the fact that such greetings were things of merely 
ephemeral interest to the recipient. 

Each print has its title printed in gold, in a car- 
touche. Thecolors are translucent and delicate; 
the printing is executed with extraordinary care, 
on soft absorbent paper. All of these prints are 
size 7 x 20, and bear Hiroshige’s seal in red. 


HIROSHIGE 


Gyotoku. Salt-beach. 
A beach with thatched huts on the shore of a 


63 


79 


8 


= 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


bay, with white sails coming in from the open 
sea at the right. Mountains rise in the back- 
ground to the left. Salt-gatherers on the shore. 
(Plate VII). 


HIROSHIGE 


The bay of Matsudo 

Beyond an embankment and a little fishing 
village is outspread the wide quiet panorama 
of the bay, with its scattered boats, low-lying 
marshes, and remote blue mountains. Some of 
the boats are moored, with their masts bare; 
others, under sail, move tranquilly over the pale 
water. (Plate VIII). 


HIROSHIGE 

Kaianji no Koyo. 

On hill-tops overlooking the sea, scarlet-foliaged 
maples and green-foliaged pines stand outlined 
against the sky. A few small figures move in 
the foreground; they are doubtless city-dwellers 
who have come a long distance to this spot, that 
they may enjoy its famed autumn moment of 
beauty. (Plate 1X). 


HIROSHIGE 

Hagidera.’ 

A mist-haunted garden; the winding lake is 
bordered by hillocks; in the far distance, pine 
trees rise out of strata of mist. A low bridge 


64 


6L ‘ON ADIHSOUIH TIA ALY Id 





ox Abe +a Pee ” 


StS 


— WADHSZOS 
5 > oy 





JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


crosses the middle distance. In the foreground, 
a few figures walk along the paths or rest on the 
tea-benches, amid pink-flowered bushes. 


Numbers 82 to 121 are landscapes by Hiro- 
shige; and, as already stated, the sets from which 
these come have been catalogued so often that it 
seems quite unnecessary to repeat the details 
of publishers, signatures, sizes, etc. here. Any 
deviation from the ordinary will be noted, and 
the name of the set from which each print comes 
will be given immediately after the name of the 
artist. In general it is sufficient to say that all 
these prints are signed by Hiroshige and that the 
landscapes of the usual size were printed on pa- 
per of approximately 10 x 15 inches, the designs 
themselves being generally a little smaller to 
allow for the black bounding lines Hiroshige af- 
fected, and for margins. The prints that follow 
are arranged roughly, though probably not ex- 
actly, in chronological order, the period of pro- 
duction running from 1830 to 1858; and the 
Hiroshige Memorial Catalogue is accepted as the 
standard authority, after which, in order of im- 
portance for the student of Hiroshige, comes the 
Happer Catalogue. The reproductions in the 
V. I. Catalogue, while not so numerous as those 
of the Memorial Catalogue, are on a larger scale 
and better printed, though sometimes from poor 
or late impressions. 


65 


82 


83 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


HIROSHIGE (Toto Meisho) 

The first cuckoo of the year at Tsukuda-jima. 
The complete set of the early Toto Meisho, or 
“Views of Toto” (Yedo) is in ten sheets charac- 
terized by peculiar red clouds. If not Hiroshige’s 
earliest landscape series, it is certainly the first 
important one done by him. Such prints of the 
set as are exhibited are all of the first edition. 
The scene of this print is the same as that of 
Hokusai No. 30, but the little island is shown 
here from nearer by and from a somewhat dif- 
ferent direction. It might also be confessed that 
Hokusai had a way of getting views of Fuji 
from places where a view of Fuji was difficult, if 
not impossible, for any one else to get. 

Subject reproduced, Jacquin Catalogue, No. 477. 


HIROSHIGE (Toto Meisho) 

Twilight Moon at Ryogoku Bridge. 

It may be noted in passing that this subject is 
the exception to the rule that prints of this set, in 
the first edition, bear the publisher’s mark on the 
margin outside the decorative border; the other 
nine subjects do, this does not. The print will 
recall to the student of modern Western art, as 
clearly as did Number 9, Whistler’s indebtedness 
to the Japanese. 

This is one of the rare examples of this print in 
tones of blue instead of the usual brown. To the 
mind of this cataloguer, the effect is extraordi- 
narily beautiful. 


66 


O08 “ON HOIHSOUIH XI ALV 1d 











84 


85 


86 


87 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


Subject reproduced, Hiroshige Memorial Cata- 
logue, No, 17. 


HIROSHIGE (Toto Meisho) 


Full Moon at Takanawa. A flock of wild geese 
flying down. 

Print reproduced, Jacquin Catalogue, No. 473. 
Subject reproduced, Hiroshige Memorial Cata- 
logue, No. 18, and in color in the Catalogue of 
Japanese Prints belonging to the Louvre, Vol. 
I], Plate 31. 


HIROSHIGE (Toto Meisho) 


Cherries at Gotenyama seen at twilight. 
Gotenyama is one of the famous places for view- 
ing the cherry-bloom. 

Subject reproduced in color, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. 
VI, No. 188, and Catalogue of Japanese Prints 
belonging to the Louvre, Vol. II, Plate 33. 


HIROSHIGE (Toto Meisho) 
New Year’s sunrise after snow at Susaki. 
Subject reproduced, Happer Catalogue, No. 16. 


HIROSHIGE (Toto Meisho) 


Late spring at Massaki. 
Subject reproduced, Kinbei Murata Catalogue of 
April, 1918. 


88 HIROSHIGE (Tokaido) 


The set known as ‘‘The 53 Stations of the To- 
kaido” contains fifty-five prints which were de- 


67 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


signed in 1833, consequent, it is said, to a trip 
made by the artist in the retinue of an official 
who had been appointed to bring a present from 
the Tokugawa Shogun in Yedo to the Emperor in 
Kyoto. Later in his life Hiroshige did various 
other Tokaido sets but none of as fine average 
quality as the first. There are also a number of 
series of Toto Meisho with fine prints in each, 
but again the earliest set is the best. 

The Tokaido was the main road along the coast 
between the two capitals and the 53 Stations 
were places where relays of bearers or horses 
could be obtained and travelers could be ac- 
commodated. Now, through the windows of the 
observation cars of the Tokaido Railway, which 
traverses much the same route, scenes flash on 
one that startlingly suggest the prints; but the 
train covers the 330 miles in a few hours, while in 
the time of Hiroshige the journey took at least 
as many days. For two hundred years the To- 
kaido was traveled regularly by nobles who came 
each year from their fiefs, followed by bands of 
retainers, to pay their annual, obligatory re- 
spects to the Shogun. There was an etiquette of 
the road; and many adventures befell poor and 
rich among the crowds that moved along it. 
The print here shown represents the crossing of 
the Ten Ryu or Heavenly Dragon River near 
Mitsuki—Station 29. The characterization of 
the two boatmen whose faces are unseen is ex- 
traordinarily expressive. 


68 


89 


gO 


9 


L ool 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


Subject reproduced, Hiroshige Memorial Cata- 
logue, Plate 26, and V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, No. 
220. 


HIROSHIGE (Tokaido) 


Clear weather after snow at Kameyama. Sta- 
tion 47. 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, No. 
22, 


HIROSHIGE (Tokaido) 


Twilight snow at Kambara. Station 16. 
Hiroshige has been called the artist of mist, 
snow and rain. This subject and the preceding 
one are among his most notable snow scenes, 
and, as the impressions of both that are ex- 
hibited are of unusually fine quality, it is inter- 
esting to notice how the snow is rendered—in 
Number 8o crisp and crystalline, in Number 90 
sodden. 

Subject reproduced, Hiroshige Memorial Cata- 
logue, Plate 25. 


HIROSHIGE (Tokaido) 


A shower at Shono. Station 46. 

This is one of the three or four most famous 
rain scenes done by Hiroshige. 

The subject is reproduced in the Hiroshige Me- 
morial Catalogue, Plate 27, from a print of the 
second edition, as published in book form, 1834, 
the difference being that in the second state the 
characters on the umbrella are omitted. The 


69 


Q2 


93 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


first state is reproduced in color in Bing’s “‘Ar- 
tistic Japan,” Vol. III, No. 15. 


HIROSHIGE 


The Bow Moon. | 

For some of his landscapes Hiroshige used the 
narrow panel form adopted for most of his bird 
and flower subjects, and sometimes, as here, with 
most notable success. The print comes from a 
series of “Twenty-eight Moonlight Views” only 
two of which are known, the other being as fine 
as this. 

The poem is Chinese and reads: 


In early dawn the moon gleams for a time 
within the myriad forests, above autumn 
streams hurrying westward through huddled 
hills. 


Subject reproduced, Hiroshige Memorial Cata- 
logue, No. 48; V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, No. 258, 
and in color as a frontispiece in Ficke’s “Chats on 
Japanese Prints.” 

Size 142 x 6%. 


HIROSHIGE 


Boatman and raft in snow on the Sumida River. 
This panel is the winter scene from a series of 
“Views of Yedo in the Four Seasons.” 

The poem reads: 


The snow that falls on the waters of the Su- 
mida may be the feathers of the oyster- 
catcher (A kind of bird—Miyako-dori.) 


70 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


The dictionary translates miyako-dori as “ oyster- 
catcher,” which conveys to us nothing of poetic 
value and little else, except that we know there is 
a bird by that name which lives on shell fish. 
One could translate “sea gull,” losing a little in 
literalness and gaining something in charm; but 
the Japanese would hear instantly the overtones 
of the word, for Miyako is the old name for the 
early capital, Kyoto, and miyako-dori is the bird 
of the Capital. Besides all this, the Japanese 
would remember a famous poem by Narihira (see 
Grolier Club: Catalogue of Figure Prints, Num- 
ber 1), written when, far from Kyoto, the name 
of this bird, casually heard, saddened his heart 
with recollections of the old home and a loved 
one left there. These allusions, whose poetic 
significance is clear to the Japanese, defy all at- 
tempts at translation. 

After all, it takes two to make almost any 
poetry. For example, there is a lovely lyric by 
Thomas Hardy which commences, “When | set 
out for Lyonnesse.”’ The overtones reverberate 
instantly for us but would be lost on most Japan- 
ese. If, on the other hand, Mr. Hardy had 
written “When I set out for Liverpool,” there 
would have been no overtones for anybody, or 
at least very different ones. A poet can only sow 
seed that blows hither and thither in the wind 
until it happens to fall on receptive ground, and 
then, instantly, there is created the flower of 
poetry. 


wt 


94 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


The finest of these panel prints, such as this and 
Number 02, are rather rare. 

Subject reproduced, Hiroshige Memorial Cata- 
logue, No. 53 and V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, No. 
286. 

Size 14% X 5. 


HIROSHIGE 


A very rare snow-scene from the rare series 
Wakan Royet Shi or “Poems of China and 
Japan.”’ The mountains of Chinese painting, 
snow-covered; in the foreground peasants in 
straw storm-coats toiling painfully over a snow- 
laden bridge toward cottages roofed in snow. 
The poem is Chinese: 


The snow flies like wild-goose feathers, scat- 
tered disorderly; men, standing and wander- 
ing, robed in snow, are like white cranes. 


According to the Hiroshige Memorial Catalogue, 
which reproduces two of the others, six sheets of 
this set are known. This is a very notable print, 
as fine as it is rare. 

Subject reproduced, Plate 22 in Japanese Color 
Prints Lent by R. Leicester Harmsworth, Esq., M. 
P., Victoria and Albert Museum, 1913; and No, 
528 in Catalogue of the Private Collection of an 
Importer of Japanese Products, Sotheby, 1911. 
Signed Hiroshige. Sealed Ichiryusai. Publisher 
Jokin. 

Size 14% x 103. (Plate X). 


72 





94 


HIROSHIGE NO 


PLATE. X 


et to 
Opis if 
at 





95 


06 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


HIROSHIGE (Omi Hakkei) 


The set to which this print belongs shows eight 
views of the beautiful Lake Biwa. 
The habit of depicting a place or region, or, by 
extension, phases of life, in eight characteristic 
aspects, was inherited from the Chinese, tradi- 
tion also fixing the general subjects of the eight, 
—Night Rain, Autumn Moon, Sunset, etc.; this 
one being Fishing Boats Returning. 
Poem: 
The boats that return with swelling sails to 
Yabase are even now leaving the shore of 
Uchida with following winds. 


Yabase is in the foreground of the picture. 

The subject is reproduced, with the title of a 
different print, in ‘‘Japanese Color Prints” by E. 
F. Strange (Victoria and Albert Museum), Plate 
XI. 


HIROSHIGE (Omi Hakkei) 
Sunset at Seta. 
Poem: 

Freed from the wintry showers passing over 

far-off Mount Moru, the rays of the setting 

sun are crossing the long bridge of Seta. 
Subject reproduced, Hiroshige Memorial Cata- 
logue, Plate 28, and V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, No. 
231,in a clearer printing. Another reproduction, 
in Bing’s “Artistic Japan,” Vol. I, No. 1, is in 
color. 

73 


97 


98 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


HIROSHIGE (Omi Hakke1) 


Returning Geese at Katata. 
Poem: 


Lured from their flight over many peaks to- 
ward far-off Koshiji, the wild geese are 
alighting at Katata. 


Subject reproduced in color, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. 
VI, No. 240. 


HIROSHIGE (Omi Hakkei) 


Evening Rain at Karasaki. The Great Pine. 
This ancient and gigantic pine, which is supposed 
to have, or to have had, the widest spread of any 
pine-tree in the world, is now merely a ghost of 
what it was ninety years ago; for there were bor- 
ers in some of the wooden supports put under 
its far-reaching branches, and the splendor of 
the great tree is gone. The dimensions as given 
by different authorities vary greatly but the cir- 
cumference of the trunk is at least thirty feet 
and, a very few years ago, the spread from east 
to west was given as 160 feet and from north to 
south as 150 feet. 

The poem is difficult but its general meaning 
seems to be: 


Hushed stands the giant pine in the night 
rain; 

Elsewhere now the evening breeze that mur- 
mured of it, sings its fame. 


74 


99 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


The subject is much better reproduced in the V. 
I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, No. 233, than in the Hi- 
roshige Memorial Catalogue, Plate 28. 


HIROSHIGE (Toto Meisho) 


The grounds of the Kameido Shrine in snow. 
The print is from a later Toto Meisho set which 
was published by Kikakudo about 1836. 

The shrine, popularly called Kameido because of 
a stone tortoise that is there, is dedicated to the 
memory of Michizane, to whom these two Gro- 
lier Club catalogues have so often referred, and 
whose romantic story is outlined under Number 
8 of the present one. 

The gardens of the Kameido Shrine were de- 
signed in imitation of those that Michizane built 
in his exile to console himself for the loss of the gar- 
den he had loved at home. The curved bridges, 
the wistaria arbor, here seen in winter, are still 
there, and still the sprawling, old plum-trees 
blossom in the snow, as trees will blossom in 
Japan; but now the quiet little shrine lies an- 
achronous, in the midst of modern Tokyo with 
its trolleys and its noise, and just outside the 
sacred enclosure rises the smoking chimney of 
some great factory whose workers, still Japanese 
at heart, creep back now and again to dream of 
old things among the plum trees. 

Subject reproduced, Hiroshige Memorial Cata- 
logue, No. 60, and V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, No. 


194. 
73 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


100 HIROSHIGE (Kanazawa Hakkei) 


10 


— 


This print, Evening Snow at Uchikawa, is from 
a series of ‘‘Eight Views of Kanazawa.” 
Poem: 


In the early dusk, when the pine is buried 
in snow and other trees are leafless, one 
glittering whiteness illumines a superb view 
of the Harbor. 


Curiously enough, this well-known subject does 
not appear to have been reproduced except in 
an undated catalogue of a Hiroshige Exhibition 
in the Yamanaka Galleries in New York. 
(Plate XI). 


HIROSHIGE (Kyoto Meisho) 


The Gion Shrine in snow. 

This series of views of the old capital, Kyoto, 
comprises ten prints, two of which are shown. 
The entrance to each Shinto shrine is marked 
by that beautifully decorative erection known 
as a Torii which consists of two uprights sur- 
mounted by a cross piece, usually curved, and 
is constructed of gray stone, wood or red lacquer. 
The origin and significance of the Jorzz are some- 
what in doubt, but the form goes back to im- 
memorial antiquity. 

The accuracy of Hiroshige is sometimes start- 
ling. The compiler, who was perfectly familiar 
with the print but had forgotten where the Gion 
Shrine was, came on it suddenly with instant 


76 


OO! “ON HOIHSOUIH IX HLV 1d 


Se i) eal a s oo ms ee eee ee a . " , aagRaatat - (ee 





I oS 


PAE oy 
ee open 


gl 


Se 











102 


103 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


recognition. The popular name of this Shrine, 
by which the print is known, is really that of a 
Buddhist temple in the same enclosure. The 
Shrine in the print was erected in 1654 in the 
place of a much earlier one dedicated to a deity 
known as The Impetuous Male because of the 
manner in which he behaved toward his sister. 
There is a festival that has been held there, with 
one intermission, ever since the year 876. 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, 
No. 206, and in color, from a paler impression, by 
Strange in “Japanese Illustration,” Plate VIII. 


HIROSHIGE (Kyoto Meisho) 


A passenger boat on the Yodo River, with a 
cook-boat alongside. ~The boatman at the bow 
watches a bird flying across the moon; and one 
who looks at the print with any imagination 
almost seems to hear that plaintive little song 
the boatmen sing. 

Subject reproduced, Hiroshige Memorial Cata- 
logue, No. 58, and V. 1. Catalogue, Vol. VI, No. 
205. 


HIROSHIGE (Kisokaido) 


The highway called Kisokaido connected the 
two capitals as did the Tokaido, but was an 
inland road whereas the other followed the 
coast. There were sixty-nine post-stations on 
the Kisokaido and there are seventy prints in 
the set, forty-seven of these having been designed 


i 


104 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


by Hiroshige, the remainder by Keisai Yeisen. 
Four by Hiroshige have been selected for exhibi- 
tion, this snow scene being Station 47, Oi. 

Subject reproduced, Happer Catalogue, No. 448. 


HIROSHIGE (Kisokaido) 
Mochizuki. Station 26. 


. The road bordered by great pines; below lies 


105 


106 


a valley dimly seen under a full moon. This 
is one of Hiroshige’s finest prints. 

Subject reproduced, Hiroshige Memorial Cata- 
logue, No. 86. 


HIROSHIGE (Kisokaido) 


Miyanokoshi. Station 37. 

Another famous print of mist and moonlight, 
and a superb impression of it. The nearer trees 
are sometimes printed in gray. 

Subject reproduced in color, Hiroshige Memorial 
Catalogue, No. go. 


HIROSHIGE (Kisokaido) 


Seba. Station 32. Frequently miscalled Semba. 
Two of the most dangerous prints to buy with- 
out consulting an expert, or after consulting 
one, are the much-admired Seba and Mochizuki 
of this Kisokaido Set. It is very rarely that 
either turns up in the original coloring and in 
such condition as those exhibited, most clean 
copies being partially reprinted, retouched or 
recolored. 

Subject reproduced, Hiroshige Memorial Cata- 


78 


107 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


logue, No. 89; V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, No. 
299, and in color, Bing’s ‘‘Artistic Japan,”’ Vol. 
IV, No. 23. 


HIROSHIGE (Yedo Kinko Hakkei) 


This set of eight views of the suburbs of Yedo 
was first privately printed and bore, in this edi- 
tion for private distribution, three poems on 
each print. The set appears to have been 
ordered by a poet for himself and his literary 
friends, some of whose verses appear with his 
own on the prints. At least two of Hiroshige’s 
masterpieces are in this set; and, to the Occi- 
dental eye, the prints were improved in the 
edition published for sale a little later by hav- 
ing two of the poems taken out of the sky. 
Five subjects are exhibited in this second state, 
the first being “‘ Fishing Boats Returning to Gy6- 
toku.”” The poem that was retained is signed 
Hayabunero Shinsu and reads: 
The Gyotoku boats anxiously homeward 
bound are driven by irresistible winds to the 
divided streams of the cat-haunted river 
(Kowagawa). 


The adjective applied to the unfortunate river 
does not strike the cataloguer as particularly 
poetic, nor does the imagination, set free and 
given impetus by the poem, find itself wan- 
dering in an Elysium of appealing sights and 
sounds; all of which goes to prove what was said 
before,—that the effect of a Japanese poem 


79 


108 


109 


THE ‘GROLIER CLUB 


depends largely on the mind of the reader—his 
inherited associations, his ideas, his accumulated 
store of knowledge. There must be some legend 
about that river, some quaint bit of folk- 
lore; but a tolerably industrious search has only 
brought to light one fact of general interest: 
in Japan respectable cats have short tails; cats 
with long tails are liable to be possessed of the 
devil. 

Subject reproduced with one poem, Hiroshige 
Memorial Catalogue, No. 100, and from the first 
edition, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, No. 276. 


HIROSHIGE (Yedo Kinko Hakkei) 


Clearing weather at Shibaura. 

The poem contains a play on words, Awa being 
a place name and also meaning “foam.” It 
reads: 


The clouds having blown away and the strong 
wind died, across the calm bay of Shibaura 
can be seen Awa and Kazusa floating on the 
gentle waves. 


Subject reproduced from the first edition, V. 
I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, No. 273. 


HIROSHIGE (Yedo Kinko Hakkei) 


Evening Rain at Azuma. 

As was stated in connection with the Omi 
Hakkei, these series of eight views had their 
general subjects prescribed by tradition. It is 


80 


I1O 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


interesting to compare, for example, the Even- 
ing Rain of one set with that of the other. 
The poem is signed Suichado, and reads: 


Caught late at night by the spring rain in the 
woods of Azuma on Willow Island, one would 
like to borrow a young willow for a raincoat 
(or, a raincoat made of young willow). 


These poems probably were souvenirs of ex- 
cursions or poets’ picnics which the prints were 
made to commemorate, and in all likelihood 
were not intended to be taken seriously. They 
were not even written for strangers, much less 
to be worked over by laborious cataloguers six 
thousand miles away. 

Subject reproduced with one poem, Hiroshige 
Memorial Catalogue, No. 98; from the first 
edition, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, No. 275, and 
in color in the Japanese translation of Ficke’s 
“Chats on Japanese Prints.” 


HIROSHIGE (Yedo Kinko Hakkei) 


Evening Snow at Asukayama. 
This is one of Hiroshige’s most famous snow- 
scenes. Asukayama was a place noted for its 
cherry blooms and was much frequented in the 
blossom season. 
Poem: 

The snow both covers the warnings against 


breaking the cherry branches and breaks them 
itself. 


SI 


II 


aad 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


These warnings, of course, were on the little 
sign posts represented in the picture, a fact 
showing that even in Japan the aesthetic van- 
dalism had occasionally to be verboten. 

Subject reproduced in the edition exhibited, Hi- 
roshige Memorial Catalogue, No.99, and from the 
first edition, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, No. 277. 


HIROSHIGE (Yedo Kinko Hakkei) 


Autumn Moon on the Tama River. 
This print, with perhaps a dozen of its peers, is 


- counted among Hiroshige’s finest achievements. 


In the first edition the moon was printed in silver. 
The poem is signed Asanoyado Massugu which, 
like many of the other signatures, may be a 
fanciful nom de plume. It reads: 


The autumn moon shines with the light of 

day upon the Futago pine on the Tama 

River. 
There is a play on the word Futago, which 
besides being the name of a place happens 
to mean “twin.” The “Futago pine” might 
equally well be translated, the “Twin pines,” 
Like other illustrators, Hiroshige seems not al- 
ways to follow his text very closely; but it may 
be that the willow upon which the moon is shin- 
ing in the picture was mentioned in one of the 
deleted poems. At any rate, even the poet 
could have wished nothing changed in a print 
so lovely. 
Subject reproduced with one poem, Hiroshige 


82 


112 


113 


114 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


Memorial Catalogue, No. 101; from the first ed- 
tion, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, No. 278, and very 
beautifully in color in the Catalogue of Japanese 
Prints owned by the Louvre, Vol. II, Plate 32. 


HIROSHIGE (Marusei Tokaido) 


This print is from one of the later Tokaido sets 
and was published by Marusei about 1852, near- 
ly twenty years after the first Tokaido series 
was drawn. The scene is at Hammamatsu 
(Pine Shore) Station 30. It represents a pil- 
grim and kelp gatherers under wind-warped 
pines on the shore of a stormy sea. 

Subject reproduced, Happer Catalogue, No. 194, 
and in color in the Catalogue of the exhibition 
held by the Japan Society of New York, No. 
234 


HIROSHIGE (Upright Tokaido Set) 


In the landscapes of Hiroshige’s later years he 
was inclined to turn more and more constantly 
from the horizontal to the upright form. This 
Tokaido set was published by Tsutaya in 1855. 
The print chosen for exhibition is Fujikawa, Sta- 
tion 38; a snow-scene of charming composition. 
Subject reproduced, Ficke’s “Chats on Japanese 
Prints,” Plate 54. 


HIROSHIGE (Meisho Yedo Hyakkei) 

This set, which is commonly known from its 

title as ‘The Hundred Views of Yedo,”’ contains 

118 prints by Hiroshige and one by his succes- 
83 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


sor, Hiroshige II, among the former being sev- 
eral of the artist’s finest designs. The earlier 
prints of the series are dated 1856 and the latest 
1858, the year of his death, these dates, of course 
being those of publication. 

Perhaps the most familiar of all Japanese prints 
are some of these ‘“‘Hundred Views of Yedo.”’ 
There have been innumerable printings, often 
careless, usually positively bad or at least in- 
different, so that in this set there is an even 
more marked difference than usual between 
good prints and poor ones. Ordinary impres- 
sions in imperfect condition or of poor color 
utterly lack the beauty that should be theirs. 
For example, the band of deep blue that Hiro- 
shige is apt to put across the top of his upright 
prints, or as a streak in water, should never be 
cut off straight with a clearly defined edge, but 
should be blended softly into the color of the 
sky or whatever else is adjacent to it. Ithas 
been stated, without proof, and on what author- 
ity I know not, that the first edition of this set 
has three colors in the square that bears the title 
of each print. Observation will indicate that, 
as a general rule with plenty of exceptions, the 
earliest and finest impressions have these three 
colors, the later and poorer ones have not. 
The first of The Hundred Views chosen for 
exhibition is Onmayagashi,—a twilight scene, 
with a ferry crossing the Sumida. This subject 
was sometimes printed, perhaps even in the first 


84 


LI 


ww 


116 


ty 


118 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


edition, much darker, with the foreground al- 
most black; sometimes the whole print is lighter; 
but neither of these printings is apt to have the 
beautifully graded color in the sky which adds 
so greatly to the charm of the one exhibited. 
Subject reproduced, Ficke’s “Chats on Japan- 
ese Prints,”’ Plate 55. 


HIROSHIGE (Meisho Yedo Hyakkei) 


Meguro Taikobashi. The Taiko Bridge at Me- 
guro. Snow-scene. 
Subject reproduced, Jacquin Catalogue, No. 485. 


HIROSHIGE (Meisho Yedo Hyakkei) 


Asakusa Temple in snow. Even to-day, the 
great lantern still hangs at the gate. In the 
print the lantern should be brilliant red as it is 
here, not the dull purple of most impressions. 
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, 
No. 310. 


HIROSHIGE (Meisho Yedo Hyakkei) 


This moonlight scene with its deep shadows and 
spots of brilliant color is a view of Tagegashi, 
the bamboo-sellers’ quarter beside Kyo Bridge. 
The bamboo is stacked upright in the yards. 
(Compare Hokusai, Number 25.) 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI 
No. 314. 


HIROSHIGE (Meisho Yedo Hyakkei) 
Fukagawa Jumantsubo. A great eagle poised 
85 


119 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


above the snow-covered plain and looking down 
at a tub floating in Yedo Bay. 

Many of Hokusai’s views of Fuji have great 
carrying power and gain in impressiveness when 
looked at from a distance. This is one of the 
few prints by Hiroshige of which the same might 
be said, for the effectiveness of his work de- 
pends usually upon delicacy and charm of de- 
tail rather than upon strength, or boldness of 
conception. 

Subject reproduced, Hiroshige Memorial Cata- 
logue, Plate 78, and V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI. 
No. 320. 


HIROSHIGE (Meisho Yedo Hyakkei) 


Ohashi. The Bridge in Rain. 

There are three states of this famous print, the 
one shown, which is considered the best; a rare 
one with two boats in the distance near the 
shore; and a later, ineffective state in which the 
storm clouds that droop here have been cut 
off straight and the shadow on the surface of 
the bridge which ties the picture together is 
omitted. The buildings on the shore should be 
printed as in this impression, neither so light 
that they become obtrusive nor so dark that 
they cannot be seen or sensed half-consciously. 
Subject reproduced in the first and second states 
mentioned in the Hiroshige Memorial Cata- 
logue, Plate 77, and in the third state, V. I. 
Catalogue, Vol. VI, No. 321. A fine impression 


86 


120 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


of the state exhibited is reproduced in color by 
Von Seidlitz and in the second volume of Fenol- 
losa’s “Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art.” 


HIROSHIGE (Meisho Yedo Hyakkei) 


Oji. The Fox-fires. 

Partly because this is one of the most gener- 
ally admired of all prints by Hiroshige, and 
partly because the impression exhibited is such 
a splendid one, a poor and late impression that 
is, however, unsoiled and in its original condi- 
tion, is left framed on the table in the centre of 
the room as an illustration and a warning. The 
one shows what the artist intended, the other is 
a dead thing with the magic of creative imag- 
ination, of personality and of charm gone. 
Those who come to the Grolier Club to learn 
must remember that much the same difference 
as this exists between impressions of most 
Japanese prints. 

The duplicate, while it is in hand, will serve to 
point another lesson: the original block for 
“The Fox-fires’’ either was damaged before 
many impressions were taken from it or anew 
block, marvellously like it, was cut from an 
imperfect piece of wood. In the framed im- 
pression there is an imperfection like a knot- 
hole near the lower left-hand corner; in the print 
exhibited there is not. The few superb im- 
pressions and all of the many poor ones that 
have come to the attention of the writer show 


87 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


the same difference; and remembrance of the 
fact might help the inexpert in choosing be- 
tween prints of this subject if the qualities of 
printing, etc. were not in themselves a suf- 
ficient guide. There is just the difference be- 
tween the two impressions that there would be 
between a magical line of Keats and the same 
line with the words in some way transposed and 
the magic gone. 

A few remarks must be added about the subject 
of the print, for fox-legends in Japan form a 
particularly appealing part of a folk-lore that is 
unusually rich and romantic. Foxes in Japan 
have magical power. Good foxes guard the rice 
fields and protect the families of people who 
have been kind to them. Bad foxes are not- 
able players of pranks; frequently they assume 
human form, appearing usually as priests or 
women, and a fox so metamorphosed is very 
difficult to distinguish from the dignified cleric 
or bewitching young girl whose form he has 
taken. One way to discover him is to get the 
reflection in water, for a face so reflected will 
show its real form; but fried rat is an infallible 
detector of foxes. No fox can resist fried rat; 
if one is placed near where a person suspected 
of being a fox is about to pass and he stops to 
sniff the delectable odor, you are sure and can 
shoot; if he passes by, unmoved, you are 
equally sure and make inward apologies for 
your suspicion. 

88 


I2 


— 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


The foxes in the print, however, are good foxes, 
assembled on New Year’s Eve near the great 
Fox Temple at Oji, which is dimly seen under 
the dark trees. There Inari—the Fox-god, pro- 
tector of crops and kindly, if somewhat whimsi- 
cal, friend of the poor, has his chief shrine, and 
there the foxes themselves gather once a year, 
each with his magical fire—astral body, shall we 
call itP or will-o-the-wispr—visible beside him. 
In the shadowy distance of the print these little 
fires dot the dark plain from the tree of assem- 
blage to the shrine. The foxes themselves have 
not the bodies of real foxes; they are super- 
natural beings, endowed with strange powers, 
fabulously old, and wise beyond the earthly 
reach of wisdom. 

The subject is reproduced in color in the Hiro- 
shige Memorial Catalogue from an early im- 
pression like the one exhibited, and the V. I. 
Catalogue, Vol. VI, No. 318, reproduces a late 
and poor impression with the imperfection in 
the block. 


HIROSHIGE (The Thirty-Six Views of Fuji) 


Kai Misaka Goye. ‘Travelers at the top of a 
steep descent; water below with a hill and pine 
tree on the right and the sweeping line of snow- 
white Fuji far away. 

The Thirty-Six Views of Fuji was Hiroshige’s 
last set, finished just before his death and pub- 
lished after he died. Some few copies of prints 


89 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


from this set and from the almost equally late 
upright Tokaido, were struck off in unusually 
delicate color, chiefly blue, and on unusually 
fine paper, perhaps to be distributed among the 
artist’s friends and pupils; it is one of these that 
has been chosen to be the last Hiroshige of 
this exhibition. 


KUNIYOSHI (1797-1861) 


Born in 1797, as was Hiroshige, Kuniyoshi 
lived on for three more of those eventful years 
that saw the opening of Japan. He was 
strongly influenced by steel engravings and other 
European pictures which had long been fa- 
miliar in Japan through the Dutch traders and 
sailors at Nagasaki; and much of his work is an 
unsuccessful attempt to combine the Occidental 
and Oriental traditions in prints which remind 
one of certain dogs whose exterior semblance 
inevitably suggests disturbing questions of an- 
cestry and heredity. 

Kuniyoshi is at his best when he is most Jap- 
anese; his figure prints lack distinction, but the 
finest of his landscapes are worthy to hang be- 
side those of Hiroshige and of Hokusai; and in 
so hanging they lose nothing of their own pe- 
culiar dignity and charm. 

Kuniyoshi was a pupil of Toyokuni, whose work 
ended the Grolier Club’s exhibition of Figure 
Prints. 


go 


JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


122 KUNIYOSHI 


123 


Eel Catchers in the Miyatogawa. 

Subject reproduced, Barboutau Catalogue, Paris, 
1904, Vol. II, No. 378. 

Signed Ichiyusai Kuniyoshi. Publisher Ya- 
mata. 

Size 9% X 143. 


KUNIYOSHI 


Nichiren in snow. This print is from a set de- 
picting episodes in the life of the thirteenth cen- 
tury Japanese saint and reformer, Nichiren, and 
shows him during a period of exile brought on 
him by the Buddhist authorities who regarded 
his activities much as the Roman Church did 
those of certain reformers who confined them- 
selves to protesting and reforming from within 
until they were forced to a definite break. The 
sect Nichiren founded is still one of the strong- 
est in Japan. 

The subject sometimes is printed with a harm- 
ful, heavy line along the horizon. When the 
print is as it should be it is perhaps the finest 
of all by Kuniyoshi, and a masterpiece. 
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, 
No. 140, and in color with the horizon line, 
“Legend in Japanese Art,”’ p. 224. 

Signed Kuniyoshi. Sealed. 

Size 83 x 13% exclusive of margins. 


QO! 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


124 KUNIYOSHI 


125 


A river flowing between high banks, a tree at 
the left and Fuji in the distance; all seen in the 
gloaming through falling rain. 

This striking print is exceedingly rare. The 
subject does not appear to have been repro- 
duced. 

Signed Ichiyusai Kuniyoshi. 

Size, inside margins, 10} x 14%. (Plate X11). 


KYOSAI (1831-1880) 


Ky6sai, a nineteenth century artist, and the 
last whose work is to be included in this exhibi- 
tion, was a painter of considerable distinction 
and the designer of a few fine prints among 
which the one shown is the most admired. He 
was especially fond of drawing ravens at rest or 
in flight, and always with a fine sense of their 
individuality. 


KYOSAI 


A black raven on a branch, watching. 

The character of the bird is unmistakable and 
the print merits a place in any exhibition. It 
is here, however, partly to carry the mind 
back once more to older things; back from 
Hiroshige to the paintings that were before 
prints, to the tradition behind those artists 
whose recorded vision of the fleeting world and 


Q2 


VZI ‘ON IHSOAINN™M IX ALVI1d 











JAPANESE LANDSCAPE PRINTS 


its loveliness has been exhibited; back to Sesshu, 
to Sotan, to painters of the Sung and Tang, to 
birds and flowers of the long ago. 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue Vol. VI, 
No. 384; Barboutau, Vol. II, No. 384, and Joly 
and Tomita Catalogue, Plate 30. 

Signed Shojo Kyosai, the Shojo being a name 
adopted on occasions by Kydosai, probably in 
reference to a mythical being called Shojo whose 
most prominent characteristic was his fondness 
for saké (rice wine). It is fitting that these 
exhibitions of Japanese prints held by the Gro- 
lier Club should end as they began, with a note 
of levity; for beautiful as the prints are, they 
were not intended to inculcate morals or be 
viewed in a spirit of austere solemnity. 

Sealed Ky6sai. 

Size 144 x o8. 


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